Vector analysis

Vector Analysis is a textbook by Edwin Bidwell Wilson, first published in 1901 and based on the lectures that Josiah Willard Gibbs had delivered on the subject at Yale University. The book did much to standardize the notation and vocabulary of three-dimensional linear algebra and vector calculus, as used by physicists and mathematicians. It went through seven editions (1913, 1916, 1922, 1925, 1929, 1931, and 1943). The work is now in the public domain. It was reprinted by Dover Publications in 1960.

The book carries the subtitle "A text-book for the use of students of mathematics and physics. Founded upon the lectures of J. Willard Gibbs, Ph.D., LL.D." The first chapter covers vectors in three spatial dimensions, the concept of a (real) scalar, and the product of a scalar with a vector. The second chapter introduces the dot and cross products for pairs of vectors. These are extended to a scalar triple product and a quadruple product. Pages 77–81 cover the essentials of spherical trigonometry, a topic of considerable interest at the time because of its use in celestial navigation. The third chapter introduces the vector calculus notation based on the del operator. The Helmholtz decomposition of a vector field is given on page 237.

The final eight pages develop bivectors as these were integral to the course on the electromagnetic theory of light that Professor Gibbs taught at Yale. First Wilson associates a bivector with an ellipse. The product of the bivector with a complex number on the unit circle is then called an elliptical rotation. Wilson continues with a description of elliptic harmonic motion and the case of stationary waves.

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