Unit vector

A unit vector is any vector that is one unit in length. Unit vectors are often notated the same way as normal vectors, but with a mark called a circumflex over the letter (e.g.  is the unit vector of .)

To make a vector into a unit vector, one just needs to divide it by its length: . The resulting unit vector will be in the same direction as the original vector.

 Standard basis vectors 
Three common unit vectors are ,  and , referring to the three-dimensional unit vectors for the x-, y- and z-axes, respectively. These vectors are called the standard basis vectors of a 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. They are commonly just notated as i, j and k.

They can be written as follows:

For the -th standard basis vector of a vector space, the symbol  (or ) may be used. This refers to the vector with 1 in the -th component, and 0 elsewhere.

 Related pages 

 Euclidean vector

 References 

Category:Linear algebra
Category:Vectors