Orthogonal

From Glossary of Meteorology



orthogonal

  1. Originally, at right angles; later generalized to mean the vanishing of a sum (or integral) of products.

    The cosine of the angle between two vectors, V1 and V2 with respective components, (x1, y1, z1) and (x2, y2, z2), is proportional to the sum of products, x1x2 + y1y2 + z1z2. Hence, if the vectors are perpendicular, the latter sum equals zero. For this reason any two series of numbers, (x1, x2, · · ·, xn) and (y1, y2, · · ·, yn) is said to be orthogonal if
    ams2001glos-Oe7

    See orthogonal functions.

  2. On an ocean-wave refraction diagram, a ray drawn everywhere at right angles to wave crests.


Retrieved from "https://glossarystaging.ametsoc.net/w/index.php?title=Orthogonal&oldid=9755"
Powered by MediaWiki
Powered by WikiTeq
Powered by Semantic MediaWiki
Copyright 2024 American Meteorological Society (AMS). For permission to reuse any portion of this work, please contact permissions@ametsoc.org. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 U.S. Code § 107) or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S.Copyright Act (17 USC § 108) does not require AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a website or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, require written permission or a license from AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy statement.