In my calculus class we used angle brackets to describe vectors, $\langle a, b, c\rangle $. But in my linear algebra class we use parenthesis. I've read here the angle brackets are for inner products but in calc we've used them generally, not necessarily when computing a product; we've said u $= \langle a,b,c\rangle $. When are parentheses or angle brackets used properly?
1 Answer
Given that a vector is minimally described by its magnitude and direction and is NOT necessarily fixed in space, the way I see it is that $\langle a, b, c\rangle $ is one way (a very common way) to describe the vector and is interpreted thus: "if you started at the origin, then the vector would terminate at point (a, b, c). So...
(a, b, c) is an exact point in the xyz coordinate space
$\langle a, b, c\rangle $ describes any vector that is equivalent to the specific vector starting at (0, 0, 0) and terminating at (a, b, c)
Here is an MIT problem set that uses both to describe the same parallelogram
