Section 11.3 : Dot Product
6. Determine if \(\vec q = \left\langle {4, - 2,7} \right\rangle \) and \(\vec p = - 3\vec i + \vec j + 2\vec k\) are parallel, orthogonal or neither.
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Start SolutionBased on a quick inspection of the components we can see that the first and second components of the two vectors have opposite signs and the third doesn’t. This means there is no possible way for these two vectors to be scalar multiples since there is no number that will change the sign on the first two components and leave the sign of the third component unchanged.
Therefore, we can quickly see that the two vectors are not parallel.
Show Step 2Let’s do a quick dot product on the two vectors next.
\[\vec q\centerdot \vec p = 0\] Okay, the dot product is zero and we know from the notes that this in turn means that the two vectors must be orthogonal.On a side note an alternate method for working this problem is to find the angle between the two vectors and using that to determine the answer.
Depending on which method you find easiest either will get you the correct answer.