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| | Is zero speed a constant speed? | Ask MetaFilter (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23) |
 | | A vector space is a set over a field (such as the real numbers) that has two operations (call them + and *) and a number of properties, but the important one here is that the space is a commutative group under +. |
 | | In the case at hand, "a vector has a magnitude and a direction" would work perfectly well for many things; it would be a little more subtle than the definition most people like (which is better encoded by things like (x,y,z)) because there'd be many different flavors of "zero vector". |
 | | Similarly, if you can't regard a velocity of zero as constant [even when the function describing the velocity, and the derivative of that function which proves that the velocity is constant, follow all of the rules of calculus, arithmetic, etc], you're choosing to disagree with the way math works. |
| ask.metafilter.com /mefi/17787 (5568 words) |
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