Talk:Euler's theorem (rotation)

What is a rotation?

As I understand the first sentence, a rotation is defined to be "a motion of the rigid body that leaves at least one point of the body in place", but what is a rigid body motion? I think SE(3), i.e., all transformations of the form

${\mathbf {x}}\mapsto {\mathbf {Rx}}+{\mathbf {b}}$

with R in SO(3), however that does not seem to be what is meant in the article. -- Jitse Niesen 10:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, when b = 0 it is a rotation, provided R is an orthogonal matrix. When R = E it is a pure translation. I thought that "rigid body motion" would not have to be defined. See also Rotation matrix where I wrote the same (I'm still working on the latter). --Paul Wormer 11:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

But there are combinations of rotations and translations that leave points of the body in place. For instance, take

${\mathbf {x}}\mapsto {\begin{bmatrix}0&-1&0\\1&0&0\\0&0&1\end{bmatrix}}{\mathbf {x}}+{\begin{bmatrix}1\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}.$

This transformation leaves the point (1/2, 1/2, 0) in place, but it's not a rotation. So I think it's wrong to define a rotation as "a motion of the rigid body that leaves at least one point of the body in place". -- Jitse Niesen 16:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The vector (1/2, 1/2, 0) is an element of the difference space of the 3D real affine space. It represents the equivalence class consisting of pairs of ordered points P→Q related to each other by parallel translation (class of parallel oriented line segments). For instance O→P ∼ O′→P′ are represented by the same triplet with

${\begin{aligned}O\rightarrow &{\begin{bmatrix}0\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}\quad P\rightarrow {\begin{bmatrix}1/2\\1/2\\0\end{bmatrix}}\\O'\rightarrow &{\begin{bmatrix}-1\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}\quad P'\rightarrow {\begin{bmatrix}-1/2\\1/2\\0\end{bmatrix}}.\\\end{aligned}}$

Namely,

${\begin{bmatrix}1/2\\1/2\\0\end{bmatrix}}=\left({\begin{bmatrix}1/2\\1/2\\0\end{bmatrix}}-{\begin{bmatrix}0\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}\right)=\left({\begin{bmatrix}1/2\\1/2\\0\end{bmatrix}}-{\begin{bmatrix}1\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}\right)-\left({\begin{bmatrix}0\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}-{\begin{bmatrix}1\\0\\0\end{bmatrix}}\right).$

A rotation is a motion of affine space that leaves invariant one point of affine space. To map affine space on the difference space (consisting of triplets of real numbers) we take a system of axes with origin in the invariant point. Hence an orthogonal map of difference space is a rotation of affine space if and only if it leaves the triplet (0, 0, 0) invariant, or, in other words, iff b = 0 and R orthogonal.

--Paul Wormer 08:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

To be precise: A rotation (at least, as used here) is not a motion in affine space (which has no metric), but in Euclidean affine space. Peter Schmitt 22:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Slight change of title?

I think "Euler's theorem on rotation" (or similar) is a better title since "(rotation)" points to disambiguation. Peter Schmitt 22:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Move matrix material to other page(s)?

I think, the matrix material would better fit into the general context of rigid motion, isometries of Euclidean spaces, orthogonal matrices, and linear operators.
Comments? Peter Schmitt 22:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

I have rewritten the introduction in the attempt to make the statement of the theorem simpler (the fixed point need not be in the body), and to describe the modern mathematical view. Peter Schmitt 22:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Reference

The reference is in the bibliography subpage. Why put it on the page? Peter Schmitt 08:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Because I didn't see your reference. My fault, I didn't look at the bibliography page. Here we see a clear disadvantage of the subpage system: a subpage is easily overlooked. Further, I thought that I was unique in having checked the original, it did not occur to me that you had too, sorry. --Paul Wormer 08:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I am rather new here, and it might well be that, in cases such like this, the reference should be given on both places. Peter Schmitt 09:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot: You think we should take the date of publication (1776) instead of 1775 (date of presentation)?

I changed the reference to the bibliography page. I'm in favor of having a reference in one spot, because if you change something you tend to forget to do it twice. About the year: I checked that reference about 20 years ago, long before I retired. Now I would have to bike to the university library to check it again, since I don't remember the details. You say it was first presented to the St. Petersburg Academy? Usually one would use the date that the paper appeared in the proceedings, I guess, i.e., 1776. --Paul Wormer 12:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The year is not really important. Of course. references are cited by the year of publication. However, since this is intended as historical note, one might consider the "true" year instead. By the way, now you may check the references conveniently online (see the external links). It would have been much more time-consuming to look through the collected works in the library ;-) (I think, the basic idea of subpages is a good one. However, probably existing subpages should be shown more prominently on the page: maybe in the TOC, or in an extra box near it, and/or as subsections at the bottom of the page -- as a link, or simply included there.
Do you have an opinion on the other issues I mentioned earlier above?
Peter Schmitt 13:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)