Deriving The Component-Wise Definition From The Geometric Definition

Let vectors \(\textbf{v}\) and \(\textbf{u}\) be defined as follows:

$$\begin{gather} \textbf{v} = v_1 \textbf{i} +v_2 \textbf{j} + v_3 \textbf{k} \\ \textbf{u} = u_1 \textbf{i} + u_2 \textbf{j} + u_3 \textbf{k} \end{gather}$$

The dot product \(\textbf{v} \cdot \textbf{u}\) is defined as follows:

$$\begin{gather} \textbf{u} \cdot \textbf{v} = \Vert \textbf{v} \Vert \ \Vert \textbf{u} \Vert \ \cos(\theta) \\ (v_1 \textbf{i} +v_2 \textbf{j} + v_3 \textbf{k}) \cdot (u_1 \textbf{i} + u_2 \textbf{j} + u_3 \textbf{k}) = \Vert \textbf{v} \Vert \ \Vert \textbf{u} \Vert \ \cos(\theta) \end{gather}$$

Since dot product is distributive:

$$\begin{align} \Vert \textbf{v} \Vert \ \Vert \textbf{u} \Vert \ \cos(\theta) = & (v_1 \textbf{i} \cdot u_1 \textbf{i}) + (v_1 \textbf{i} \cdot u_2 \textbf{j}) + (v_1 \textbf{i} \cdot u_3 \textbf{z}) \\ & (v_2 \textbf{j} \cdot u_1 \textbf{i}) + (v_2 \textbf{j} \cdot u_2 \textbf{j}) + (v_2 \textbf{j} \cdot u_3 \textbf{z}) \\ & (v_3 \textbf{k} \cdot u_1 \textbf{i}) + (v_3 \textbf{k} \cdot u_2 \textbf{j}) + (v_3 \textbf{k} \cdot u_3 \textbf{z}) \end{align}$$

Since dot product of perpendicular vectors are 0:

$$\begin{align} \Vert \textbf{v} \Vert \ \Vert \textbf{u} \Vert \ \cos(\theta) &= (v_1 \textbf{i} \cdot u_1 \textbf{i}) + (v_2 \textbf{j} \cdot u_2 \textbf{j}) + (v_3 \textbf{k} \cdot u_3 \textbf{z}) \\ &= v_1u_1 (\textbf{i} \cdot \textbf{i}) + v_2 u_2 (\textbf{j} \cdot \textbf{j}) + v_3 u_3 (\textbf{k} \cdot \textbf{z}) \end{align}$$

Since the square of a vector's magnitude is the dot product of that vector with itself:

$$\begin{align} \Vert \textbf{v} \Vert \ \Vert \textbf{u} \Vert \ \cos(\theta) &= v_1u_1 (1^2) + v_2 u_2 (1^2) + v_3 u_3 (1^2) \\ &= v_1u_1 + v_2 u_2 + v_3 u_3 \end{align}$$

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