Tangential Velocity as a Cross Product

Referring again to Fig.B.4, we can write the tangential velocity vector as a vector cross product of the angular-velocity vector (§B.4.11) and the position vector :

To see this, let's first check its direction and then its magnitude. By the right-hand rule, points up out of the page in Fig.B.4. Crossing that with , again by the right-hand rule, produces a tangential velocity vector pointing as shown in the figure. So, the direction is correct. Now, the magnitude: Since and are mutually orthogonal, the angle between them is , so that, by Eq.(B.16),

as desired.

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.