Quote:Original post by eleusive
Quote:Original post by jlgosse
I do believe a(b.c) = (b.c)a because of associativity laws. Or maybe it's commutativity laws.
It's one of them.
No, matrix multiplication is (usually) not communitive, so a(b.c)!=(b.c)a, but a(b.c)=(a.b)c, under the laws of associativity.
The last equation is wrong. A simple counterexample is to take a = (0, 0, 1) and c = (1, 0, 0). Then the left hand side is (0, 0, (b·c)), which is NOT equal to the right hand side, which is ((a·b), 0, 0).
There is no need to get into commutativity or associativity. The fact that a(b·c)=(b·c)a doesn't need to be proved. (b·c) is just a number (as I said in my original answer), and in the standard definition of a vector space, only (b·c)a is defined, while a(b·c) has no meaning. It is however quite natural to let it mean the same thing, especially if you use matrix notation for the vectors, since in this case, the equation follows from matrix algebra:
[ a1 ] [ a1 ][ a2 ][ b·c ] = [ b·c ][ a2 ][ a3 ] [ a3 ]