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[parent] visualizations of exterior forms (Definition)

There are (relatively) easy ways to visualize low-dimensional differential forms [1]:

A 1-form is locally like a stack of papers; given a vector, it returns a number: how many sheets the arrow pierces.

A 2-form takes a pair of arrows and returns the "area" of the parallelogram they define.

A 3-form takes a triple of arrows and returns the "volume" of the parallelliped they span. This explains why in three dimensions there's only a one-dimensional space of 3-forms, and why a global one-form tells you about orientation.

Bibliography

1
Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, ``Gravitation'', Freeman, 1973.

Editorial note: Descriptions of these with pictures would be nice (especially for helping to visualize de Rham cohomology). Maybe they would be better off in an attached entry, though.




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See Also: differential form


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Cross-references: orientation, dimensions, span, volume, parallelogram, area, arrow, number, vector, stack, 1-form, differential forms

This is version 3 of visualizations of exterior forms, born on 2005-08-16, modified 2006-06-27.
Object id is 7323, canonical name is VisualizationsOfExteriorForms.
Accessed 1835 times total.

Classification:
AMS MSC15A75 (Linear and multilinear algebra; matrix theory :: Exterior algebra, Grassmann algebras)
 58A10 (Global analysis, analysis on manifolds :: General theory of differentiable manifolds :: Differential forms)

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