ORTHOGONALITY


Meaning of ORTHOGONALITY in English

n.

In mathematics, a property synonymous with perpendicularity when applied to vectors but applicable more generally to functions .

Two elements of an inner product space are orthogonal when their inner product

for vectors, the dot product (see vector operations ); for functions, the definite integral of their product

is zero. A set of orthogonal vectors or functions can serve as the basis of an inner product space, meaning that any element of the space can be formed from a linear combination (see linear transformation ) of the elements of such a set.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.      Краткая энциклопедия Британика.