Clifford Algebras for Rotating, Scaling, and Translating the Plane June 8th, 2009
Patrick Stein

In my previous post, I reviewed how the complex numbers can be used to represent coordinates in the plane and how, once you’ve done that, complex arithmetic leads naturally to rotations, scalings, and translations of the plane. Today, we’re going to do the same with the Clifford algebra \mathcal{C}\ell_2.

What are Clifford Algebras

In our previous post, we used two different ways to represent coordinates in the plane. We used an ordered pair of real numbers like (3,5) and we used the real and imaginary parts of a complex number like 3 + 5i. Another way we could have written the coordinates in the plane is as a vector. Typically, to express a vector, we pick an axis (say, the x-axis) and then pick a second axis perpendicular to it (say, the y-axis). Most physics books would call these \hat{i} and \hat{j}. I am going to use e_1 and e_2 instead so that there is no confusion with i = \sqrt{-1} and because it is a notation that we will continue throughout Clifford algebras. We could then express (3,5) as 3e_1 + 5e_2. Here, e_1 and e_2 are called unit vectors. We assume they have length one so that when we take three of them, we get something with length three (for arbitrary values of three).

Having done that, we can easily multiply any vector by a real number using the normal distributive law: s \cdot \left(xe_1 + ye_2\right) = (sx)e_1 + (sy)e_2. And, we can add vectors just like we added complex numbers: summing like parts. So, (ae_1 + be_2) + (ce_1 + de_2) = (a+c)e_1 + (b+d)e_2. Of course, subtraction goes the same way: (ae_1 + be_2) - (ce_1 + de_2) = (a-c)e_1 + (b-d)e_2.

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Complex Numbers for Rotating, Translating, and Scaling the Plane June 7th, 2009
Patrick Stein

A good friend of mine recently discovered some of the fun things you can do with complex numbers if you’re using them to represent points in the plane. Yesterday, I re-read a passage by Tony Smith about why one should be interested in Clifford algebras. Tony Smith’s passage included all of the fun one can have with the complex plane and extends it to three, four, five, and more dimensions. I thought, I should segue from the complex numbers in the plane to Clifford algebras to quaternions in 3-space to Clifford algebras again in a series of posts here.

What are Complex Numbers

Say you’re playing around with polynomials. You start playing with the equation z^2 - 1 = 0. WIth a little fiddling, you find this is equivalent to z^2 = 1. Then, you take the square root of both sides to find that z = \pm \sqrt{1} = \pm 1. We started with a polynomial equation in one variable in which the highest exponent was two and we found two answers.

Pounding your chest and sounding your barbaric yawp, you move on to z^2 + 1 = 0. This should be easy, right? With the same fiddling, we find z^2 = -1 and then z = \pm \sqrt{-1}.

Uh-oh. What do we do now? We can’t think of any number that when multiplied by itself gives us a negative number. If we start with zero, we end with zero. If we multiply a positive number by itself, we get a positive number. If we multiply a negative number by itself, we get a positive number. Again!

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