silemus.

34Projection of bb onto aa

Find the projection of b=(2,3)\displaystyle b = (2, 3) onto a=(1,1)\displaystyle a = (1, 1).

The projection is the scaled copy of a that lands where b's shadow falls. With a·b = 5 and a·a = 2, the scale is 5/2, giving proj = (5/2, 5/2). Check: b minus this is (−1/2, 1/2), perpendicular to a since their dot product is 0.

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