Orientation of A Space
The above described geometrical meaning of the word orientation should not be confused with its meaning in the context of linear algebra, where a different orientation means a change to the mirror image by a reflection.
Formally, for any dimension, the orientation of the image of an object under a direct isometry with respect to that object is the linear part of that isometry. Thus it is an element of SO(n), or, put differently, the corresponding coset in E+(n) / T, where T is the translation group.
Read more about this topic: Orientation (geometry)
Famous quotes containing the words orientation and/or space:
“Every orientation presupposes a disorientation.”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)