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Chirality (mathematics)
In geometry, a figure is chiral (and said to have chirality) if it is not identical to its mirror image, or, more precisely, if it cannot be mapped to its mirror image by rotations and translations alone. An object that is not chiral is said to be ''achiral''. A chiral object and its mirror image are said to be enantiomorphs. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek (cheir), the hand, the most familiar chiral object; the word ''enantiomorph'' stems from the Greek (enantios) 'opposite' + (morphe) 'form'. Examples Some chiral three-dimensional objects, such as the helix, can be assigned a right or left handedness, according to the right-hand rule. Many other familiar objects exhibit the same chiral symmetry of the human body, such as gloves and shoes. Right shoes differ from left shoes only by being mirror images of each other. In contrast thin gloves may not be considered chiral if you can wear them inside-out. The J, L, S and Z-shaped ''tetrominoes'' of the popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orthogonal Matrix
In linear algebra, an orthogonal matrix, or orthonormal matrix, is a real square matrix whose columns and rows are orthonormal vectors. One way to express this is Q^\mathrm Q = Q Q^\mathrm = I, where is the transpose of and is the identity matrix. This leads to the equivalent characterization: a matrix is orthogonal if its transpose is equal to its inverse: Q^\mathrm=Q^, where is the inverse of . An orthogonal matrix is necessarily invertible (with inverse ), unitary (), where is the Hermitian adjoint (conjugate transpose) of , and therefore normal () over the real numbers. The determinant of any orthogonal matrix is either +1 or −1. As a linear transformation, an orthogonal matrix preserves the inner product of vectors, and therefore acts as an isometry of Euclidean space, such as a rotation, reflection or rotoreflection. In other words, it is a unitary transformation. The set of orthogonal matrices, under multiplication, forms the group , known as the orthogonal gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
