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The Dot Product - By Philip Harrison
How to use this applet:The applet is fairly simple so using it should not be difficult. A couple of thing to note are; the first page of the applet will take some time to load, possibly more then a minute if you have a slow transfer rate, when it does load and the animation appears you should press the 'continue' button which will cause the applet to move to the 'main menu' after the animation completes; the other thing to consider is the Dot Product Calculator, all you have to do is move the mouse cursor onto the grid and click in the two places you want the vectors. To enter another set of vectors in the calculator you should click back to the 'main menu' and go back into the calculator.Notes on the maths used in the applet:All the mathematics relevant to the Dot Product is explained in the applet so I will simply list the formulas below in case they were unclear in the applet.
Consider the following vectors:
a: (mi + nj) and b: (pi + qj).
a · b = |a| * |b| * Cosq
a · b = (m * p) + (n * q)
q = Cos-1((a · b) / (|a| * |b|))
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