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#### 23.1.3 Vectors

`vect` is a package of functions for vector analysis. `load ("vect")` loads this package, and `demo ("vect")` displays a demonstration.

The vector analysis package can combine and simplify symbolic expressions including dot products and cross products, together with the gradient, divergence, curl, and Laplacian operators. The distribution of these operators over sums or products is governed by several flags, as are various other expansions, including expansion into components in any specific orthogonal coordinate systems. There are also functions for deriving the scalar or vector potential of a field.

The `vect` package contains these functions: `vectorsimp`, `scalefactors`, `express`, `potential`, and `vectorpotential`.

By default the `vect` package does not declare the dot operator to be a commutative operator. To get a commutative dot operator `.`, the command `declare(".", commutative)` must be executed.

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Next: eigen, Previous: Matrices, Up: Introduction to Matrices and Linear Algebra [Contents][Index]