As usual, the Omniscient Wikipedia does a pretty good job of giving the standard mathematical definition of a "vector":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space#Definition
If the thing fulfills the axioms, it's a vector. Complex numbers do, as well as scalars.
On Oct 15, 2010, at 8:56 AM, David Schuller wrote:
> On 10/14/10 11:22, Ed Pozharski wrote:
>> Again, definitions are a matter of choice....
>> There is no "correct" definition of anything.
>
> Definitions are a matter of community choice, not personal choice; i.e. a matter of convention. If you come across a short squat animal with split hooves rooting through the mud and choose to define it as a "giraffe," you will find yourself ignored and cut off from the larger community which chooses to define it as a "pig."
>
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> David J. Schuller
> modern man in a post-modern world
> MacCHESS, Cornell University
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