Norm
A norm is a generalized distance.
Contents
Description
In Euclidean spaces, the Euclidean distance describes the magnitude of a vector.
The idea of distance is generalized for inner product spaces as the norm. The natural norm for an inner product space is defined using the inner product: ||a|| = √⟨a, a⟩.
This is not the only feasible norm. A norm must satisfy these properties:
||a|| ≥ 0 and ||a|| = 0 only if a is the zero vector
||ca|| = |c| ||a|| for any scalar c
The triangle inequality: ||a + b|| ≤ ||a|| + ||b||
Other feasible norms include:
- The p-norm
If a = [x y z], then ||a||p = p√(|x|p + |y|p + |z|p).
Note that Euclidean distance is equivalent to the 2-norm. The absolute value operators are unnecessary for even ps.
- Max norm
If a = [x y z], then ||a||∞ = max{|x|, |y|, |z|}.