James Tauber's Blog 2004/04/20
Elements of Linear Spaces
Since Tim Bray kindly announced my entry into the blogosphere, I've found that questions I pose here get answered by wonderful people I've never met before.
It's worked with technology questions so let's try it with a question of mathematical terminology that has been bothering me recently.
The question is simply: If one wishes to refer to vector spaces by the alternative "linear spaces", what should elements of that structure be referred to if not "vectors"?
I want to avoid using the term "vector" for generic elements of a linear space because, when talking about things like one-forms and bivectors, I'd like to use the term "vector" in its narrower sense.
Most texts I've looked at give "linear space" as an alternative name for "vector space" but none provide an alternative to "vector".
Any ideas?
by jtauber : Created on April 20, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)