# Do four dimensional vectors have a cross product property? [duplicate]

We know how to make cross product of three dimensional vectors. $$\vec A \times \vec B = \vec C$$

Where :
$\vec A = (A_i; A_j; A_k)$
$\vec B = (B_i; B_j; B_k)$
$\vec C = (C_i; C_j; C_k)$

$C_i = \left|\begin{matrix}A_j&A_k\\B_j&B_k\end{matrix}\right|$ $C_j = \left|\begin{matrix}A_k&A_i\\B_k&B_i\end{matrix}\right|$ $C_k = \left|\begin{matrix}A_i&A_j\\B_i&B_j\end{matrix}\right|$

But what about if we have four dimensional vectors?
Is it possible to make cross product of four dimensional vectors?
If it is possible, then tell me when it can be possible?

Let say we have two vectors:
$\vec A = (A_i; A_j; A_k; A_l)$
$\vec B = (B_i; B_j; B_k; B_l)$

Then how to compute a cross product of this two vectors? Will it again vector? $$\vec A \times \vec B = \vec C$$

$\vec C = (C_i; C_j; C_k; C_l)$
Then how to compute those coordinates?

We know that only square matrices have a determinant property!
In this case it might not be correct if we will wright...
$\color{red} {\text {$C_i = \left|\begin{matrix}A_j&A_k&A_l\\B_j&B_k&B_l\end{matrix}\right|$} C_j = \left|\begin{matrix}A_k&A_i&A_l\\B_k&B_i&B_l\end{matrix}\right| C_k = \left|\begin{matrix}A_i&A_j&A_l\\B_i&B_j&B_l\end{matrix}\right| C_l = \left|\begin{matrix}A_i&A_j&A_k\\B_i&B_j&B_k\end{matrix}\right|}$

So tell me how to solve this problem?

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## marked as duplicate by Rahul, Lee Yiyuan, Sabyasachi, Sami Ben Romdhane, Sameh ShenawyMar 21 '14 at 9:08

See the previous questions Cross product in $\mathbb R^n$ and Is the vector cross product only defined for 3D? –  Rahul Mar 21 '14 at 6:06

Here is an article that precisely formulates and demonstrates the non-existence of a cross product in Euclidean spaces of dimensions other than $3$ and $7$: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2323537. If you can't access the article through the link, the article reference is

Cross Products of Vectors in Higher Dimensional Euclidean Spaces

W. S. Massey

The American Mathematical Monthly

Vol. 90, No. 10 (Dec., 1983), pp. 697-701.

Since it's in the Monthly, it should be pretty readable to a well-prepared undergraduate.

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Some sources, e.g., Brown and Gray, define cross products to be multilinear maps that satisfy certain antisymmetry and orthogonality conditions; in particular, they need not take exactly two arguments (restricting to this, the bilinear case, leads to the restriction that the dimension of the vector space be $3$ or $7$). –  Travis Jul 5 at 6:39

While it is feasible to compute a cross-product in four dimensions, the cross-product only has the orthogonality property in three and seven dimensional spaces. You should consider instead looking at Gram-Schmidt Orthogonalization to find orthonormal vectors.

http://www.math.hmc.edu/calculus/tutorials/gramschmidt/

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