Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37

The change of basis matrix $C$ is the matrix that allows us to express the new basis in an old basis:

Mnemonic is as follows: consider we have an initial basis $(x_{old},y_{old})$. Now, we define the new basis in terms of the old basis, e.g.:which can be written in matrix form as:and so if we set:we have:

The usual question then is: given a vector in the new basis, how do we represent it in the old basis?

The answer is that we simply have to calculate the matrix inverse of $M$:

That $M^{-1}$ is the matrix inverse.

The transpose and matrix inverse commute:

Let's show that this definition is equivalent to the orthogonal group is the group of all matrices that preserve the dot product.

Note that:and for that to be true for all possible $x$ and $y$ then we must have:i.e. the matrix inverse is equal to the transpose.

Conversely, if:is true, then

These matricese are called the orthogonal matrices.

TODO is there any more intuitive way to think about this?