Show that quaternion multiplication is not commutative. That is, give an example to show that sometimes varepsilon eta does not equal eta varepsilon.

bobbie71G

bobbie71G

Answered question

2020-12-24

Show that quaternion multiplication is not commutative. That is, give an example to show that sometimes εη does not equal ηε.

Answer & Explanation

tafzijdeq

tafzijdeq

Skilled2020-12-25Added 92 answers

Quaterions form a finite dimension vector space over R.
Suppose that, their multiplication is commutative. Then, it becomes a field. It implies that, they are finite dimensional field extension of the real numers.
But according to the dunfr,antal theorem of algebra, there exists only one such extension which is the complex numbers.
That is, if quarternion multiplication was commutative, then it would just reduce to the complex numbers.
Quaternion multipliction is used to model three dimensional rotations According to the multiplication,
i×j=k
j×i=k
That is, rotatoins in the three dimensions are not commutative.
Consider two quaternions 12+i2and12+j2.
On multiplying he two in both ways.
(12+12i)(12+12j)=12+12i+12j+12k
(12+12j)(12+12i)=12+12i+12j12k
Thus, quaternion multiplication is not commutative.

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