Ristvektori

Ristvektori, also known as the cross product, is a binary operation on two vectors in three-dimensional space. The result of the cross product is a vector that is perpendicular to both of the original vectors. The direction of the resulting vector is determined by the right-hand rule, which states that if you point the fingers of your right hand in the direction of the first vector and curl them towards the direction of the second vector, your thumb will point in the direction of the cross product. The magnitude of the cross product vector is equal to the area of the parallelogram spanned by the two original vectors. If the two vectors are parallel, their cross product is the zero vector.

The cross product is not commutative, meaning that the order of the vectors matters; the cross product of vector a and vector b is the negative of the cross product of vector b and vector a (a × b = -(b × a)). It is, however, distributive over vector addition, meaning that a × (b + c) = (a × b) + (a × c). The cross product has applications in physics, particularly in electromagnetism and mechanics, where it is used to calculate torque, angular momentum, and magnetic forces. It is also utilized in computer graphics for determining surface normals and in geometry for calculating the area of triangles.