Dot and Cross Product Revisited

We can now finally write down precise equivalents of the dot and cross products using differential forms. First of all, the definition of the Hodge dual tells us that the Hodge dual, $*$, and the metric, $g$, in fact contain the same information. Interpreting $g$ on 1-forms as the dot product, we have \begin{equation} \alpha \cdot \beta = (-1)^s {*}(\alpha\wedge{*}\beta) \end{equation} where we have used ${*}\omega=(-1)^s$. The dot product is thus defined in any dimension and signature, and reduces to the expected dot product in the positive-definite case. In 3 dimensions, if we identify $\xhat$ with $dx$, etc., we recover the dot product in its usual form.

As for the cross product, recall that $\alpha\wedge\beta$ over $\bigwedge(\RR^3)$ had the form of the cross product, but was a 2-form. We can now use the Hodge dual to turn this into a 1-form, obtaining \begin{equation} \alpha\times\beta = {*}(\alpha\wedge\beta) \end{equation} Note however that this only works in 3 dimensions; otherwise the result is not a 1-form. 1)

1) A generalization of the cross product with many of the same properties can be obtained as the product of $n-1$ 1-forms in $n$ dimensions given by \[ \alpha_1\times…\times\alpha_{n-1} = {*}(\alpha_1\wedge…\wedge\alpha_{n-1}) \] However, a bilinear map with the properties of the cross product is only possible in 3 and, surprisingly, in 7 dimensions. (The latter product is related to the octonion multiplication table, just as the ordinary 3-dimensional cross product is related to the quaternion multiplication table.)

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