Fantastic Quaternions - Numberphile

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  • čas přidán 17. 01. 2016
  • Dr James Grime discusses a type of number beyond the complex numbers, and why they are useful.
    Extra footage: • Quaternions (extra foo...
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  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 1,6K

  • @rudymartin8583
    @rudymartin8583 Před 8 lety +966

    If you're like me and were completely confused by the equation i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = ijk = -1 , go to the extra footage, it really helped me. The reason it looks so weird is because you lose the commutative property when you go from 2D rotation to 3D rotation, the property stating that ab = ba . This means that the order of multiplication matters, and that if you reorder them, you get a different result.
    If you'll imagine for a minute, when you rotate an object in 2D space, you can do more than one rotation, and the order of those rotations wouldn't matter; it'll end up in the same ending position. But if you're rotating an object in 3D space, then the order of the rotations absolutely matters! Turning an object 90 deg counterclockwise then 90 deg away from you (if that makes any sense...) is not the same as turning it 90 deg away from you then 90 deg counterclockwise.

    • @jackismname
      @jackismname Před 6 lety +34

      Marie Alexander Thank you very much for this explanation!

    • @ceruchi2084
      @ceruchi2084 Před 6 lety +57

      Incredibly useful comment! I just spent the last five minutes rotating a beer can in "two" dimensions and then in three dimensions, and now this makes intuitive sense.

    • @user-qk7qr7qq8t
      @user-qk7qr7qq8t Před 6 lety +5

      ceruchi same with my finger😂

    • @mawebb88
      @mawebb88 Před 5 lety +12

      I did the same with a nail file and I had the revelation like you.

    • @xavierstanton8146
      @xavierstanton8146 Před 5 lety +6

      Yes, you could say that the quaternions aren't Abelian.

  • @AlanKey86
    @AlanKey86 Před 8 lety +2911

    I had a friend at uni whose answer phone message was:
    *Sorry, the number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone through 90 degrees and try again*
    Epic.

    • @icannotchoose
      @icannotchoose Před 8 lety +172

      I aspire to be that person.

    • @VicvicW
      @VicvicW Před 8 lety +26

      Byootiful!

    • @NickiRusin
      @NickiRusin Před 8 lety +65

      +AlanKey86 That dude was probably a real fun dude to talk to.

    • @U014B
      @U014B Před 8 lety +30

      +Drama_Llama_5000 I am that person!

    • @NickiRusin
      @NickiRusin Před 8 lety +27

      ***** You're cool, man.

  • @krakow10
    @krakow10 Před 8 lety +556

    My origin story! I cry every time.

    • @TheNefastor
      @TheNefastor Před 5 lety +81

      You're got a... complex story ? 😅

    • @lawrencedoliveiro9104
      @lawrencedoliveiro9104 Před 4 lety +21

      Peeling quaternions can apparently do that to you.

    • @onigumo
      @onigumo Před 2 lety +4

      KZ, man of culture

    • @vin_fm2354
      @vin_fm2354 Před 2 lety +2

      This entire comment section makes me wanna d(i)e

    • @asheep7797
      @asheep7797 Před 2 lety +8

      He still keeps his name after 6 years!

  • @shell_jump
    @shell_jump Před 8 lety +597

    As a sophomore in high school, my computer graphics teacher introduced me to quaternions. When he wrote down the multiplication laws, I realized for the first time that math wasn't just another science. There is a sort of creative freedom to it. You get to decide the what the rules of the game are, and then see what sorts of structure arise as a result. Needless to say, I've been hooked ever since.

    • @jamesnguyen7507
      @jamesnguyen7507 Před 8 lety +25

      +anonymousbl00dlust I wish my school had computer graphics

    • @MD-pg1fh
      @MD-pg1fh Před 8 lety +50

      +anonymousbl00dlust That's a riveting realization, but it gets even more intriguing when you realize you can't just make them up whichever way you want. If you define your object in the wrong way, you get nonsense; and even when you define it the right way, you get emergent properties that you can't just make up whichever way (e.g. in linear algebra, not every matrix is inversible, and you can't just make it so it works). This begs the question: Are we "making up" mathematics? Are we "discovering" mathematics?

    • @paradoxica424
      @paradoxica424 Před 8 lety +10

      +Moritz Durtschi Maybe it's like a massive wall of logic which we can unbrick one at a time to reveal what was already there all along.

    • @bengski68
      @bengski68 Před 8 lety +2

      +anonymousbl00dlust Math: not even once

    • @Reydriel
      @Reydriel Před 8 lety +7

      +Jack Lam
      That's exactly it! That's why mathematics is something we discover instead of just something we made up.

  • @gabrielkwiecinskiantunes8950

    6:01 James realizes he can't express his thoughts using mere words.

    • @DeathBringer769
      @DeathBringer769 Před 6 lety +34

      I'm sure many mathematicians go through the same feeling many times in their lives, lol.

    • @TheNefastor
      @TheNefastor Před 5 lety +16

      And that's why we have numbers :-)

  • @pegy6384
    @pegy6384 Před 8 lety +975

    I would pay to watch a blooper reel or outtakes from all the main Numberphile presenters. I'm sure there's a lot of funny stuff that we never get to see.

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 8 lety +484

      +Peg Y I think they'd pay me NOT to show that! :)

    • @davecrupel2817
      @davecrupel2817 Před 8 lety +17

      +Numberphile I'd pay for a dvd of them 😁lol

    • @VicvicW
      @VicvicW Před 8 lety +56

      +Numberphile We shall outbid them!

    • @moritzkockritz5710
      @moritzkockritz5710 Před 8 lety +12

      +Numberphile We are MORE!

    • @hugo.teixeira
      @hugo.teixeira Před 8 lety +28

      +Peg Y I imagine them committing mistakes in easy sums or basic stuff like 4+2

  • @PhilippeGouin
    @PhilippeGouin Před 8 lety +96

    Finally an video that doesn't start with "it's complicated, so just ignore what they are, here's how to use them"! Great explanation, thanks!

  • @skroot7975
    @skroot7975 Před 8 lety +127

    James is like a kid at christmas all the time. Love it!

  • @fakjbf3129
    @fakjbf3129 Před 8 lety +90

    Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a mathematician at Oxford when this was discovered. He hated abstract math, and thought it was all a bunch of hogwash with no basis in reality. So he wrote a book in which he included a caricature of various abstract mathematical concepts, including quaternions. He wrote it under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol and it's called Alice in Wonderland.

    • @voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885
      @voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 Před 5 lety +12

      "real numbers are a convenient fiction" - Bertrand Russell

    • @bobnavonvictorsteyn9017
      @bobnavonvictorsteyn9017 Před 3 lety +2

      That is the coolest thing I have heard all day

    • @rosiefay7283
      @rosiefay7283 Před 3 lety +4

      What's the correspondence between various abstract mathematical concepts, including quaternions, and anything in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? (BTW take another look at the name of the author in that book.)

    • @grandpaobvious
      @grandpaobvious Před rokem +4

      doubtful anecdote is doubtful

    • @ragnkja
      @ragnkja Před rokem

      @@grandpaobvious
      It’s the tea party scene, and in particular the bit around “At least I mean what I say.”

  • @HeavyboxesDIYMaster
    @HeavyboxesDIYMaster Před 8 lety +757

    6:03 What math technique is that?

    • @the-keymaker
      @the-keymaker Před 8 lety +87

      It's a mathematical gesture, duh

    • @YourMJK
      @YourMJK Před 8 lety +238

      It's the gesture equivalent for crossing out your previous result

    • @the-keymaker
      @the-keymaker Před 8 lety +28

      +YourMJKTube genius

    • @karanbajwa1963
      @karanbajwa1963 Před 8 lety +28

      +Heavyboxes Its a 'mis-calculated' gesture.

    • @TNBLUEDIXIE
      @TNBLUEDIXIE Před 7 lety +11

      Noice

  • @Omedalus
    @Omedalus Před 2 lety +6

    I've been watching dozens of videos on quaternions. This is the first one that actually explained how quaternion multiplication results in spatial rotation. Specifically at time 4:50, In showing how to rotate by 45° on the complex plane, everything else just kind of falls into place. Magical. Thank you!

  • @JacobFelten
    @JacobFelten Před 8 lety +3

    Imagine if the video ended right after he said, "Their fantastic!" at 0:35. He's so charismatic that I still would have thought it was a great video.

  • @TecaLucas2ndChannel1
    @TecaLucas2ndChannel1 Před 8 lety +87

    Quaternions sound like a race out of a Sci-Fi movie.

  • @brianhoskins1979
    @brianhoskins1979 Před 7 lety +9

    Numberphile is easily the best channel on all of CZcams.
    When I was in school I feared maths, and I gave myself the idea that I was really bad at it. I have since learned that actually I'm *not* bad at it - I just needed to have a bit of confidence and the will to try hard, that's all.
    If Numberphile had been around when I was in school I think it would have been the inspiration I'd have needed, and maybe I never would have given myself the stupid idea that I couldn't do maths.

  • @Entropy3ko
    @Entropy3ko Před 8 lety +8

    "lots of i" love that Brit-speak.
    You explained it very well James!

  • @warlour
    @warlour Před 2 lety +2

    Thank you so much for still having this old video! It really broadened my understanding of Quaternions and Complex Numbers :)

  • @GamesFromSpace
    @GamesFromSpace Před 8 lety +332

    I've been using quaternions for years, as a programmer, and have absolutely NFI how they really work (even though I can implement them, and certainly know how to get results from them). Matrices, please.

    • @hanniffydinn6019
      @hanniffydinn6019 Před 8 lety +30

      You have to get into algebraic geometry to truly understand then. Which means every number is really just a higher dimensional object in space. Real and complex numbers are just "cut" down views to what is really going on. Hence, we live in a multi dimensional universe !

    • @eideticex
      @eideticex Před 8 lety +5

      +Joshua Pearce It's not too hard to understand if you plot out your axes that form from transforming the world's forward, up and right vectors against a quaternion. It's really not any different from axis-angle, some of the math is already done for you with a quaternion. Even with a matrix you wind up needing them to prevent gimble lock if your expecting unpredictable rotations performed on the matrix (like a camera being moved around).

    • @GamesFromSpace
      @GamesFromSpace Před 8 lety +14

      (And every time I mention quaternions being something I don't grok, I get a new set of attempted explanations to add to the pile...)
      Alan Hunter You mostly just described how and when to use them, which is something I've been doing fine for years. And I would never use quaternions AND matrices, I'd use just matrices if I needed that extra info, and convert to quaternions only when a different API needs them, or it somehow simplifies a function. I guess it depends how you define the term "use" in this context. They certainly both have their uses.

    • @frankschneider6156
      @frankschneider6156 Před 8 lety +5

      +Hanniffy Dinn
      Only if one assumes these numbers have physical reality. Mathematics is a tool to describe physics/reality. Reality is not the implementation of what's mathematically possible.

    • @yuriythebest
      @yuriythebest Před 8 lety +2

      +Joshua Pearce Yess sir!! So I'm not the only one! Euler angles are fine, but quaternions are all about trial n effort in getting your desired result. Watching this video, I felt as if he was using elvish script to describe something I use - it's not us who are wrong, it's the maths people with their complex stuff!!

  • @lohphat
    @lohphat Před 8 lety +73

    How can a 12min video finally get the concept of "i" across so clearly which my high-school teacher could not?
    I suspect I wasn't paying attention or I was just not interested or motivated to learn. Now it makes much more sense. Perhaps the development of mobile tech and graphics showing these concepts in real time make it easier...

    • @swaggercr7
      @swaggercr7 Před 8 lety +11

      What's so hard about understanding it?

    • @MattCattrell
      @MattCattrell Před 8 lety +3

      +Longarmx This is something that just wasn't really dealt with well when I was in school, either. The concept of visual learners was well established, and no one would dream of trying to teach a toddler something without visual aids, but math teachers in the 90's, heck most teachers in high school, just seemed to forget this all and keep trying to explain using the same words and phrases over and over again... I hope that has changed these days!

    • @lohphat
      @lohphat Před 8 lety +4

      +SwaggerCR7 As he stated, the term "complex" is misleading and the mechanical formulations are all I remember from school. The graphical relationships demonstrated here made it all "click" and come together.

    • @RylanEdlin
      @RylanEdlin Před 8 lety +3

      +lohphat I think the confusion is that modern usage conflates complex and complicated when they actually have different meanings: complicated meaning difficult and complex meaning built of many parts.

    • @Theraot
      @Theraot Před 8 lety +4

      +lohphat As far as I can tell, most teachers will start by going about the square root of negative one. While starting at using them as vectors is easier to grasp.

  • @pidigi
    @pidigi Před měsícem

    You have no idea how this channel is helping me to grow. I’ve no enough thank you

  • @r6inhardt
    @r6inhardt Před 8 lety +3

    Excellent, thanks for sharing this. James did a great job of helping me to follow the math for Quaternions.

  • @komrad36
    @komrad36 Před 8 lety +154

    I use quats every day! In addition to computer graphics, they are useful in aerospace. I use them for satellite attitude control. Cheers!

    • @-Danny
      @-Danny Před 8 lety +9

      You have an awesome sounding job! I bet it pays well. Haha.

    • @thegrumpysock6391
      @thegrumpysock6391 Před 8 lety +2

      what is your job and whar did you study?

    • @MattCattrell
      @MattCattrell Před 8 lety +4

      Maybe I'm just tired and didn't catch it in the video, can you explain what each of the four numbers represents in the real world? I just thought it through, using Kerbal Space Program as my mental model, is this correct: One number for "forward and backward" one for "side to side", one for "up and down" and one for "pitch and yaw"? I think that makes sense now... Maybe I need a nap and then I should watch this again... Thanks!

    • @EebstertheGreat
      @EebstertheGreat Před 8 lety +2

      +komrad36 I'm curious, when is it easier to use quaternion multiplication over rotation matrices?

    • @komrad36
      @komrad36 Před 8 lety +10

      +Yassine Sayadi I'm still in school, actually. Dual degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical physics. But I also work at NASA doing basic orbital and attitude propagation simulation and research and also work as an independent contractor for the NSF, doing satellite attitude determination and control (ADACS) for a satellite constellation called TRYAD. I write the software that my colleagues use to model satellite behavior in orbit.

  • @ConstantlyDamaged
    @ConstantlyDamaged Před 8 lety +292

    A video explaining why the extra dimension is needed, would be awesome.
    Also, if my calc3 professor at university had spent the 12 minutes to explain what complex numbers were, the way you did, I might have actually completed the damn course >.>

    • @Vulcapyro
      @Vulcapyro Před 8 lety +54

      +Darthane ...You took a Calc 3 course without some linear algebra?

    • @ConstantlyDamaged
      @ConstantlyDamaged Před 8 lety +4

      Vulcapyro I took it in order, never got any advice to do otherwise. If there was something I missed then that explains my freakout over completely not understanding what was going on :)

    • @logicalfundy
      @logicalfundy Před 8 lety +7

      +Darthane I believe it has to do with 2D having one degree of freedom (you just rotate around a point), but 3D having three degrees of freedom (you can rotate around the x, y, z axes of a point in 3D space).

    • @ophello
      @ophello Před 8 lety +16

      +Darthane You need three pieces of information to define a point in space, but that's not enough to tell it what to do. Quaternions are about manipulating points in space, not just defining their position.

    • @DFPercush
      @DFPercush Před 8 lety +30

      +Darthane Think of the "stab and rotate" analogy. What do you need in order to "stab" something? A vector, right? Imagine the pointy tip like a spear piercing the object. A vector in 3d space takes 3 numbers. Then you need another number for the angle.

  • @picklesnorf101
    @picklesnorf101 Před 8 lety +1

    This video was awesome!
    Thank you so much for posting this.
    Numberphile videos are always the highlight of my day.

  • @mikekuppen6256
    @mikekuppen6256 Před 8 lety +2

    Man I love Dr Grime! Even if I don´t always understand him right away, it makes me happy to look at him being enthusiastic.

  • @2Cerealbox
    @2Cerealbox Před 8 lety +8

    I had been hearing that quaternions were scary, even though it was how all game engines work underneath the surface. You've made the subject much more approachable.

  • @michaelgodfrey4911
    @michaelgodfrey4911 Před 8 lety +58

    I have to admit, I've got a bit of a crush on James. He's got such a charming voice and friendly personality, he comes across as a really nice guy you could chat with for ages . Also, I just love the way he acts when he gets excited about maths as well, the way he lights up and can't wait to tell us the next bit and he's almost bouncing with joy. Not a bad looker either on top of that

    • @youtubesuresuckscock
      @youtubesuresuckscock Před 6 lety +6

      That's what happens when Radiohead's signer teaches you maths.

    • @iris5403
      @iris5403 Před 3 lety +3

      @@youtubesuresuckscock Thomes Grorke

  • @picknikbasket
    @picknikbasket Před 8 lety +1

    This one of Jame's best vids, really interesting and the extra footage leaves me wanting even more!

  • @chrisb3380
    @chrisb3380 Před 8 lety +1

    Great to see you back James. Hoping for more vids from you in the future!!

  • @piticea
    @piticea Před 8 lety +11

    YES, a video with james grime :D

  • @Madsy9
    @Madsy9 Před 8 lety +19

    Quaternions is the way to rotate 3D points in pure mathematics, but in practical engineering and software development, Euler angles are also popular. The advantage of euler angles is that it's easy to understand as a set of combined 3D rotations. The advantage of quaternions is that it's only one single operation, so you avoid gimbal lock; a problem which haunts euler angles unless you design around it.
    But you can also combine both techniques. For example, in computer software like Blender and Maya, a user could specify rotations by using euler angles, which later is converted into quaternion form to avoid gimbal lock. And even later combined and turned into a 4x4 affine transformation matrix.
    Also notice that the quaternion rotation as described by James, "hph*" is a very formal description of the rotation. Which is interesting (math is interesting!), but not very practical. In practice you would combine multiple quaternions together, turn the final quaternion into matrix, and then do a matrix-vector multiplication.
    Regarding the "control" you lose as you go up in dimensions: Octonion and sedenion multiplication is neither commutative nor associative.
    I would love if Numberphile could make a video on this question though: Why are the most useful algebras of a dimension 2^N? It is a natural consequence of applying the Cayley-Dickson construction, but *why* do algebras of these exact dimensions (1,2,4,8 ..) have nicer properties (or is defined at all!) than say R^3, R^5 and R^7? Is conjunction undefined in the latter dimensions?

  • @Hewlett-Packard-Lovecraft

    What a brilliantly rendered explanation. Whenever I learn of mathematical functions this beautifully visceral, and ethereal, it's not unlike being violently shaken awake from a deep slumber and it submerges me back into the unsettling divinity of sacred Mathematica.
    As above, so bellow

  • @spazmobot
    @spazmobot Před 8 lety

    James - your enthusiasm about math makes what would probably be a boring subject to most people, really interesting. Thanks for making it fun!

  • @bazookah187
    @bazookah187 Před 8 lety +92

    I'm a simple man, I see Dr. James Grimeon in the thumbnail, i click

    • @user-hx9gu5nh9p
      @user-hx9gu5nh9p Před 5 lety +2

      You are just a real idiot attempting to be funny by consciously playing the role of an average idiot

    • @damienjones1487
      @damienjones1487 Před 5 lety +5

      @@user-hx9gu5nh9p dang, what an absolute intellectual you are

    • @user-hx9gu5nh9p
      @user-hx9gu5nh9p Před 5 lety +1

      harold the alien I appreciate your compliment and effort, considering you even had to edit a one line sentence.

    • @damienjones1487
      @damienjones1487 Před 5 lety +1

      Wow, that really hurt my feeling

    • @damienjones1487
      @damienjones1487 Před 5 lety +1

      @@user-hx9gu5nh9p im sueing

  • @cubedude76
    @cubedude76 Před 8 lety +31

    quaternonions are great in fajitas

  • @RyanGatts
    @RyanGatts Před 8 lety

    This is probably the first time numberphile has answered a question I have actively been wondering, and I love that the answer is so cool!

  • @lawrencecalablaster568
    @lawrencecalablaster568 Před 8 lety +1

    :D I have been waiting for a video about quaternions forever! Thank you so much, James & Brady!!!!

  • @franciscomorilla9559
    @franciscomorilla9559 Před 8 lety +3

    *New Numberphile video*
    Let's see it
    *James is in the video*
    YEAAAAHHHHHHH

  • @TheScabbage
    @TheScabbage Před 8 lety +4

    Yaaaay finally, quaternions :D
    So I watch most CZcams videos at 2x speed...
    6:01
    Glorious.

  • @sampadabhatnagar5818
    @sampadabhatnagar5818 Před 2 lety

    I really liked the way you did storytelling to explain the entire concept, makes it more fun to learn!

  • @firefoxmetzger9063
    @firefoxmetzger9063 Před 7 lety +1

    This video literally explained in 12 minutes what my professors failed to explain for 6 month. Thanks so much for this!

  • @CatnamedMittens
    @CatnamedMittens Před 8 lety +5

    He's alive!

  • @MrMakae90
    @MrMakae90 Před 8 lety +18

    Please, a video on Octonions. Thanks.

    • @melficexd
      @melficexd Před 5 lety +3

      And who in the name of the higher realms need an 8 dimension vector?! 😂 *sits in the corner of a tesseract*

    • @stulora3172
      @stulora3172 Před 4 lety +2

      @@melficexd physicists

  • @radenzito
    @radenzito Před 4 lety

    Omg Dr James Grime. This guy has born to make others learn and understand. Thank you a lot for your work

  • @Garvish_Parekh
    @Garvish_Parekh Před 5 měsíci

    Finally a great video, after spending soo many days reading blogs and watching tons of videos which were so complicated from the get go, still bit confused about 3D rotation, but I am much more clear and have basic understanding to understand more complex material.

  • @tomasouzaheuert
    @tomasouzaheuert Před 8 lety +15

    A + Bismuth + Carl Johnson + Donkey Kong

  • @DragonMasterClay
    @DragonMasterClay Před 8 lety +9

    Why couldn't you have posted this one year ago. Last spring I was in Dublin, I would have gone to see the bridge!

  • @ShayBowskill
    @ShayBowskill Před 8 lety

    Has anyone else noticed how much the very slight camera shake contributes to how cool these videos are? Makes such a huge difference if you imagine how this would be without it

  • @MeteOguc
    @MeteOguc Před 8 lety +2

    This was such a clear and useful lecture! I should have learned about this relation about 10 years ago! Thank you!

  • @petros_adamopoulos
    @petros_adamopoulos Před 7 lety +6

    Been under that bridge on pilgrimage before it was cool.

  • @swaggercr7
    @swaggercr7 Před 8 lety +65

    So how many components for rotating in a 4 dimension? ...8??

    • @yxlxfxf
      @yxlxfxf Před 8 lety +22

      How about Graham dimensions?

    • @johngalmann9579
      @johngalmann9579 Před 8 lety

      +SwaggerCR7 I would have thought it was on factor for scaling and one for each plane of rotation, but no I wonder what the system is...

    • @yxlxfxf
      @yxlxfxf Před 8 lety +14

      John Galmann seems like 2^(n-1) for n dimensions,idk why though...

    • @JackProudfoot
      @JackProudfoot Před 8 lety +24

      +Famfly So a zero'th dimension requires half a component? Interesting

    • @twilightknight123
      @twilightknight123 Před 8 lety +9

      +SwaggerCR7 As said in the video, the next level is the octonions (8 components) which are quite useful in physics for describing the motion of a spin-1/2 particle (specifically the split octonions, though the octonions do have their uses with symmetry).
      +Famfly I believe for n rotating spacial dimensions, the pattern is an n-2 dimensional object to rotate around (2D plane around 0D point and 3D space around a 1D line) and 2^(n-1) components as that's the size of the smallest extension of the arithmetic ring.

  • @tmd4951
    @tmd4951 Před 6 lety +1

    I listen a lot of videos to understand what quaternion is. And let's me say this is the best video that explain very clearly.

  • @naimulhaq9626
    @naimulhaq9626 Před 8 lety

    Absolutely beautiful presentation. Thank you Dr. Grime.

  • @culwin
    @culwin Před 8 lety +23

    Both i and j = sqrt(-1)!
    Finally mathematicians and engineers can find some agreement.

  • @robertm.6243
    @robertm.6243 Před 8 lety +4

    i really want him as my math professor...

  • @Titanknox
    @Titanknox Před 8 lety

    thank you so much for this video, ive been doing lots of video game programming recently, and i thought i new quaternions, but this demonstration completely locked it down.

  • @robertwatson4840
    @robertwatson4840 Před 2 měsíci

    Came here because I am reading Against the Day and this was a perfect explanation for a mathematical neophyte like myself who never got further in school than pre calculus. Thank you so much!

  • @lawrencecalablaster568
    @lawrencecalablaster568 Před 8 lety +8

    Anyone else think that James is awesome? :)

  • @omrialkabetz5602
    @omrialkabetz5602 Před 8 lety +20

    I don't understand something about the equation i^2=j^2=k^2=ijk=-1 :
    If you square ijk, will the result be: (ijk)^2 = (-1)^2 = 1?
    Or (ijk)^2 = (i^2)*(j^2)*(k^2) = (-1)*(-1)*(-1) = -1?

    • @jeffreyhersh908
      @jeffreyhersh908 Před 8 lety +14

      +Omri Alkabetz Not quite. What it is saying with ijk = -1 is ij = k. Since i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = -1 this mean that i,j, and k anticommute, that is ji = -k. So (ijk)^2 = (ijk)(ijk) = (k^2)(k^2) = 1. Or (ijk)^2 = (ijk)(ijk) = (i^2)(jk)(jk) = -(i^2)(j^2)(k^2) = 1

    • @snowprinceintardis
      @snowprinceintardis Před 8 lety +5

      +Omri Alkabetz They are not actually just numbers, but they are described as 'root of -1'. They are really just unit vectors that tell us to go which way and how much. Since it is a 3 dimensional vector multiplication and they have 90 degrees between them, i and j multiplied 3 dimensionally would be ij=k. and the others i=jk, j=ik. What happens with taking the square of that is actually you've changed the parenthesis, and therefore changed the priority. It's not just simple mathematics anyone learns in highschool, it's rather more complex. But I am in my first year in college, so I may not be completely correct in explaining. I did not understand the i^2=ijk=-1 at first either.

    • @1ucasvb
      @1ucasvb Před 8 lety +26

      +Omri Alkabetz (i j k)^2 is not (i^2)(j^2)(k^2).
      (i j k)^2 is i j k i j k .
      You can't move the i's together to make i^2, for instance, because this property of "reordering" (commutativity) had to be given up in order to construct quaternions as a number system that is consistent.

    • @douggwyn9656
      @douggwyn9656 Před 8 lety +3

      +Diego The Star Pirate (ijk)^2 = ijkijk = (k)ki(i) = (kk)(ii) = (-1)(-1) = 1. For octonions it's harder to do the algebra, because not only are they noncommutative but also nonassociative.

    • @Pianothegamer
      @Pianothegamer Před 8 lety

      +Omri Alkabetz I don't understand this properly either but I can tell you that:
      (ijk)^2 doesn't equal to (i^2)(j^2)(k^2) because (i^2), (j^2) and (k^2) are all equal to ijk
      So, (i^2)(j^2)(k^2) is actually equal to (ijk)^3.
      I believe that your first equation: (ijk)^2 = (-1)^2 = 1 was correct.

  • @mnada72
    @mnada72 Před 5 lety

    I had no idea that it's possible for me to understand this topic that easily, and this proves that everything is understandable as long as there is the one who can explain it

  • @scififanman
    @scififanman Před 8 lety

    Being a CAD technician I found this video very insightful. After I went to college to become a CAD tech for mechanical engineering/design, I discovered all the work I was doing involved 3D, whereas older, more experienced techs often only worked in 2D. All of my work involved modeling in 3D, and some of the CAD programs like Alibre were very odd about how they manipulated things in 3D space. But knowing this form of math helps explain some of the operational quirkiness certain CAD programs have, when you're working in 3D.

  • @tub944
    @tub944 Před 8 lety +71

    Do a video on TREE(3) please

    • @branthebrave
      @branthebrave Před 8 lety +4

      +tub944 They did.

    • @tub944
      @tub944 Před 8 lety +3

      +Brandon Boyer which one?

    • @U014B
      @U014B Před 8 lety +3

      Fiddy?

    • @ophello
      @ophello Před 8 lety +3

      +Brandon Boyer No they didn't. They mentioned it by name once but they never analyzed it.

    • @mannaggiacristo
      @mannaggiacristo Před 8 lety +4

      +Brandon Boyer No. There is a video (maybe more than one) about Graham's number in which they mention it but nothing more.

  • @whitherwhence
    @whitherwhence Před 7 lety +10

    For your complaint abput the name "complex number", in Hebrew we basically call them compound numbers. So, ha. Neener neener.

    • @krakenmetzger
      @krakenmetzger Před 4 lety +2

      Yeah but in England we have foreskin. Neener Neener

  • @D4v1ks
    @D4v1ks Před 6 lety

    Great video.I always enjoy to understand why something works, instead of just using it.Thanks

  • @izzomapping7430
    @izzomapping7430 Před 8 lety

    So cool! I really was waiting for this!

  • @ragnkja
    @ragnkja Před 8 lety +22

    So to include another dimension of rotation, you need twice as many terms.

    • @douggwyn9656
      @douggwyn9656 Před 8 lety +1

      +Nillie It depends on whether you just want the new location, or the orientation and the location.

    • @suremarc
      @suremarc Před 8 lety +1

      Not exactly. The first thing to note is that rotations in the complex plane are done via multiplication, whereas with quaternions one takes the (group theoretic) conjugation by an element 'q', i.e. x rotated by q is qxq^-1. With octonions you get 7 dimensional rotations, although there are some caveats.

    • @kevincarmody1207
      @kevincarmody1207 Před 8 lety +2

      +Nillie no, in 4D you only need quaternions, but with fewer restrictions that in 3D. See my reply to +SwaggerCR7.

    • @kevincarmody1207
      @kevincarmody1207 Před 8 lety

      +Matthew Cramerus group theory is not necessary. Quaternion multiplication is an extension of complex multiplication in exactly the same way that complex multiplication is an extension of real multiplication. The notation q^-1 means reciprocal in quaternions just as it does in complex numbers, whereas the conjugate is different and is denoted q*. The conjugate is used for 3D rotation, as the video explains.

    • @suremarc
      @suremarc Před 8 lety

      3D rotations via quaternions are given by inner automorphisms of H, which form a group under composition.

  • @sethgartner5057
    @sethgartner5057 Před 8 lety +7

    Unless I completely misunderstood, the "i" he refers to represents the square root of 1, but what do "j" and "k" equal? Like from a math standpoint, or are they just variables following "i" in the alphabet?

    • @AnthonyMata
      @AnthonyMata Před 8 lety +1

      i means imaginary number and its square root of one.

    • @ThunderWorkStudioAMGE
      @ThunderWorkStudioAMGE Před 8 lety +1

      +Anthony Mata square root of minus one

    • @ben-devries
      @ben-devries Před 8 lety +3

      +Anthony Mata i is the square root of -1, the square root of +1 would be a real number

    • @AnthonyMata
      @AnthonyMata Před 8 lety +1

      +ThunderWork Studio yeah I forgot the neg sign since sqrt of one is one lol

    • @sethgartner5057
      @sethgartner5057 Před 8 lety

      +Ben DeVries yeah I realized i messed up, i is the square of -1, but that still doesnt answer what j and k are

  • @9000fail
    @9000fail Před 8 lety

    This channel never fails to blow my mind

  • @cts3md
    @cts3md Před 4 měsíci

    Awesome video very clear and well presented! Thank you so much for posting!

  • @UCH6H9FiXnPsuMhyIKDOlsZA
    @UCH6H9FiXnPsuMhyIKDOlsZA Před 8 lety +6

    ...Why can't you just use 3 -- yaw/pitch/roll? Or does that only describe rotational position (that's not the word is it) as opposed to a rotation?

    • @komrad36
      @komrad36 Před 8 lety +5

      +TheNewbiedoodle You can - those are called Euler angles and are indeed the smallest (least memory required) way to represent an attitude. They have some disadvantages, however. I wrote a similar answer in depth as a reply to EebstertheGreat above. Cheers!

    • @JasonEwton
      @JasonEwton Před 8 lety +4

      +komrad36 With Euler angles, I think you run into something called "Gimbal Lock"?

    • @Thomcat
      @Thomcat Před 8 lety +1

      you also need to define your rotation order when expressing a rotation

    • @GMLscripts
      @GMLscripts Před 8 lety +4

      +TheNewbiedoodle To add to what the others have said, quaternion interpolation also rotates an object with a natural-looking, uniform angular velocity, something that could be very difficult to achieve with yaw, pitch, roll.

  • @mighty8357
    @mighty8357 Před 8 lety +6

    Anyone know the exact reason why a 3-dim number is not enough? Dr Grime just said that we need a 4th dimension without say why (other than it wouldn't work if we have 3)

    • @komrad36
      @komrad36 Před 8 lety +4

      +Phil Diesch You can use just 3 - those are called Euler angles and are indeed the smallest (least memory required) way to represent an attitude. They have some disadvantages, however. I wrote a similar answer in depth as a reply to EebstertheGreat above. Cheers!

    • @eideticex
      @eideticex Před 8 lety +1

      +Phil Diesch It comes down to defining space. In 2 dimensions there is only a positive and negative rotation you can perform, clockwise or counter-clockwise. The axis is already defined by the topology of the space. In 3 dimensions however you can rotate around all axes freely, so to perform a rotation you must defined which axis to rotate around and how far to rotate. Notice in the math if you leave out sin(theta) you have coordinates, draw a line from 0 to those coordinates and it forms the axis that the quaternion will rotate around.

    • @DreadKyller
      @DreadKyller Před 8 lety +2

      +Phil Diesch 3 dimensional numbers can represent a rotation in 3d space, however there's a few oddities with it:
      1) The order of the rotations matter, if you rotate along the x then the y then the z, you'll have a different ending rotation than if you rotate along the z then the x then the y.
      2) You can't easily rotate around a specific line, with quarternions you can place a line through the object and rotate the object around that pole, no matter the angle of the pole, with eulers you're limited to rotating on the 3 dimensional axis, and thus doing the same is complicated and ends up being the same math as is behind quarternions.

    • @Samudbhava
      @Samudbhava Před 7 lety

      does that mean that in 4D there are 8 axes?

    • @FeaturingMaxAsMax
      @FeaturingMaxAsMax Před 5 lety

      The exact reason is that rotations in 3-space form a 3-dimensional Lie group, called SO(3). The elements of this group are 3 x 3 matrices, hence they appear to depend on 9 parameters. However, it turns out that the matrix representation is really wasteful. The slicker way is to realize that SO(3) can be double-covered by the unit sphere S^3, which sits in 4-space, so you *only* need 4 numbers. I think that Dr. Grimes should have said it that way. The miracle is not that you need 4 parameters instead of 3 -- the miracle is that you need 4 parameters instead of 9. A slightly more handwavey way to say it is that a rotation is defined by four parameters: an axis of rotation, given by v1 * i + v2 * j + v3 * k (which has three parameters) and an angle of rotation, given by theta (the fourth parameter).

  • @timothycalco8089
    @timothycalco8089 Před 4 lety

    This guy’s excitement is contagious!

  • @elfferich1212
    @elfferich1212 Před 6 lety

    This is by far the best video on quaternions ever.

  • @davejacob5208
    @davejacob5208 Před 7 lety +4

    is there actually a proof that shows that it is impossible to make the rotation with threedimensional numbers?

    • @uelssom
      @uelssom Před 7 lety

      Dave Jacob you need 3 rotational axis to fully rotate a 3d object. The "imaginary" (quotes bc i dont know how they call j and k) provide such axis.So you need 3 imaginary, plus the real = 4 dimension numbers

    • @davejacob5208
      @davejacob5208 Před 7 lety

      uelssom is there a proof?

    • @6exG
      @6exG Před 7 lety +2

      google 'gimbal lock''

    • @hichamelyassami1718
      @hichamelyassami1718 Před 6 lety

      in robotics it's called 'wrist flip' or 'wrist singularity', it is when the path through which the robot is traveling causes the first and third axes of the robot's wrist to line up, the second wrist axis then attempts to spin 180° in zero time to maintain the orientation of the end effector...the result of a singularity can be quite dramatic and can have adverse effects on the robot arm, the end effector, and the process.

    • @hichamelyassami1718
      @hichamelyassami1718 Před 6 lety +1

      In formal language, gimbal lock occurs because the map from Euler angles to rotations (topologically, from the 3-torus T3 to the real projective space RP3) is not a covering map - it is not a local homeomorphism at every point, and thus at some points the rank (degrees of freedom) must drop below 3, at which point gimbal lock occurs.

  • @iTzDeyo
    @iTzDeyo Před 5 lety +38

    Who else is came here after watching Joe Rogan and Brett Weinstein talking about this??

  • @ludmilgrigorov2527
    @ludmilgrigorov2527 Před 8 lety

    This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!

  • @simetry6477
    @simetry6477 Před 6 lety

    Sometimes I feel like am jousting with you, but thankfully you bring it back to a point.

  • @Durakken
    @Durakken Před 8 lety +7

    I can follow you until you get to the quanternians...cuz you explain what they are but not how it works... It's kinda annoying cuz I'd really like to understand how the math works to go along with the understanding of other parts. Something tells me that if I had learned trigonometry in HS I'd know this or if I remembered what cosigns and tangents were this would be a lot easier to get.
    The sad this is, to me the whole need 4 number thing to me is obvious once the first part is explained but you seem really excited about it that this was such a hard problem.

    • @egor.okhterov
      @egor.okhterov Před 8 lety

      I don't know if it makes anything easier, but here we go. Imagine we have a point on a plane and we want to know how it will be seen on the coordinate axis, if we know its angle of rotation. From the perspective of the axis X this point has moved cosine distance from the origin. From the perspective of the axis Y this point has moved sine distance from the origin. Now, if we magnify cosine on the X axis so that it becomes equal to one, what will happen to sine? The answer is the sine becomes equal to the tangent. If we scale sine instead, the cosine will become cotangent.

    • @MattCattrell
      @MattCattrell Před 8 lety

      +Охтеров Егор uh, I'm not the guy you replied to, but since my highest math was algebra 2 around 15 years ago, this didn't really help... Not sure you can explain all that succinctly without pictures... Thanks for trying though!

    • @Durakken
      @Durakken Před 8 lety

      That suffers the problem that most people have. You try to explain it in a way that someone who already understands it understands you, but anyone else won't.
      Anyways... Am I to believe that i, j, and k mean 90 degree rotation, or more specifically move along the "dimension" that is represented by that given terms... The first being x, second being y, third being z (depth), and fourth being rotation.
      I don't get the usage of i otherwise or the "multiplication" he uses either, but I only loosely listened there and know that multiplication can do things that look odd on the surface.

    • @Durakken
      @Durakken Před 8 lety

      Matt Cattrell Similar. I only took algebra cuz I was forced to. I didn't find it hard, but I hated it and did as little as possible...and several times less than ^.^ The biggest issue I find with math in general is the terminology and the lack of connection to an example that makes it easy to understand and in this case it is unfortunate because it has an obvious practical example here.

    • @zh84
      @zh84 Před 8 lety +2

      This video isn't really enough to explain how it all works. If you want more detail, I recommend an excellent book called "Yearning for the Impossible", which has a chapter on how quaternions were invented and, in particular, why they have to have four dimensions. Briefly, if you have only 1, i and j, what is i * j? Quaternions get round this by having i * j = k, and so on.

  • @sohee7597
    @sohee7597 Před 4 lety +3

    6:02 is he speaking in 4 dimentions?

  • @redouanekachach9181
    @redouanekachach9181 Před 5 lety

    Simple and straightforward explanation. Thanks Sir.

  •  Před 6 lety

    As a 3d artist who rotates stuff in 3 dimensions everyday, I can say I felt in love with you and your passionate way of explaining quaternions

  • @streak1burntrubber
    @streak1burntrubber Před 8 lety +10

    Real numbers... stupid name.
    Imaginary numbers... stupid name...
    Complex numbers... stupid name...........
    We need to get better people to come up with names for this stuff.

    • @harry_page
      @harry_page Před 6 lety +8

      How about direct numbers instead of real numbers and lateral numbers instead of imaginary numbers? Those names are what Gauss came up with I think

    • @sebastiangudino9377
      @sebastiangudino9377 Před 6 lety +2

      Dude, Hypercomplex Number (The superset of quaternions) is a really cool name!

    • @mydogskips2
      @mydogskips2 Před 5 lety

      +Tsavorite Prince I like that, does it include 3D numbers, or is it just 2D?
      Isn't a plane only two dimensional(and thus wouldn't a planar number define only a 2D space)?
      I mean, isn't a complex number just a number with a real component and an imaginary component? So this wouldn't necessarily mean it's a 3D number. Wouldn't a third component/coordinate be needed?

    • @AttilaAsztalos
      @AttilaAsztalos Před 5 lety

      Careful there. That's how you get Strange quarks and Charm quarks...

    • @jeerdace8625
      @jeerdace8625 Před 5 lety +1

      Tsavorite Prince Don't imaginary numbers fall under the category of complex numbers? Therefore, bilinear numbers would be planar numbers right? Or have I hit my head against a wall?

  • @lawrencecalablaster568

    I love quaternions so much. Complex numbers are one of my favourite mathematical concepts.

  • @theatheistpaladin
    @theatheistpaladin Před 8 lety +63

    Quaternions... Octerions... Just sounds like alien star trek races.

  • @beat461
    @beat461 Před 8 lety

    this guy is always so full of enthusiasm

  • @clawpuss2
    @clawpuss2 Před 8 lety

    Love the infectious enthusiasm of this guy.

  • @RickusDomesticus
    @RickusDomesticus Před 2 lety +1

    This is by far the simplest explanation I have ever watch

  • @frank39pw
    @frank39pw Před 5 lety

    Grime's explanation was, far and away, the best I've ever seen, or read, on quaternions. I could parrot the multiplications but had little feel for the What's and the Why's.

  • @dusandragovic09srb
    @dusandragovic09srb Před 5 lety

    Love this channel! And people on it! Keep up the good work!

  • @HarhaMedia
    @HarhaMedia Před 8 lety

    I use quaternions to present orientations of coordinate frames in all of my 3D rendering related programming projects and I absolutely love them.

  • @kinanali2668
    @kinanali2668 Před 5 lety

    U can't imagine how much u helped me through this video
    Thanks

  • @torgo_
    @torgo_ Před 8 lety

    This is awesome. I've spent a lot of time in Unity (game development software) fooling around with Quaternions but I never quite understood it. Very fascinating! I'm surprised my lecturers never covered this.

  • @akshayjain2676
    @akshayjain2676 Před 8 lety

    After so many years I got the concept of this . Awesome

  • @crzykd1305
    @crzykd1305 Před 7 lety

    So after a great few years programming in computer graphics and having a fairly loose grasp on quaternions (I knew how to get them to work, I had a wobbly idea of why they did so), this video made my jaw drop (literally), for explaining quaternions in a way that made sense to me

  • @edilsonfernandes4703
    @edilsonfernandes4703 Před 8 lety

    Incredible explanation...Thank you so much!!

  • @johnmeo1532
    @johnmeo1532 Před 8 lety

    Explanation was simple and very clear all the way up to the point he introduced the quaternions. I was hoping to have a full understanding of these elusive beasts but I still couldn't grasp all of their properties. He devolved from an intuitive explanation into a very formal representation that is only understood by people that already know what quaternions are about.

  • @olafv.2741
    @olafv.2741 Před 4 lety

    Great video. A nice demonstration of mind over matter: you stopped the clock at 16:00.

  • @PaltryPete
    @PaltryPete Před 8 lety

    I like how you shoot your videos on various different locations. It does something, I think.

  • @mini_bunney
    @mini_bunney Před rokem

    finally I found an actually understandable explanation for what a quaternion is, thank you!

  • @niccoloaylward7689
    @niccoloaylward7689 Před 8 lety

    Going back and looking at all of the videos with Dr. Grimes in them now that I've met him.

  • @carlosrojas5125
    @carlosrojas5125 Před 6 lety

    Thanks for the explanation. It was an exquisite presentation