Linear Algebra – Relationship Between Cross Product and Outer Product

linear algebramatricesterminologyvector-spaces

Since inner products $(V)$ are generalisations of dot products $(\mathbb{R}^n),$ then are outer products $(V)$ also related to cross products $(\mathbb{R}^3)$ in some way?

A quick search reveals that they are—yet the outer product of two column vectors in $ \mathbb{R}^3$ is a $3\times3$ matrix, not another column vector. What is the connection?

Best Answer

Cross product is much more related to exterior product which is in fact a far going generalization.

Outer product is a matricial description of tensor product of two vectors.