Timeline for Why do we use cross products in physics?

5 events

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Dec 10, 2019 at 18:26	comment	added	user2705196		@Tom It has to be the cross-product because it gives the right answer. Any other product (that is distinguishable from the cross-product) will give the wrong answer. E.g. the actual force seems to be given by $\vec{F}=q \vec{v} \times \vec{B}$, so any other description will have to be mathematically equivalent to this.
Dec 10, 2019 at 17:45	comment	added	jamesqf		@Tom: I don't agree that it's useless. The details of what can be modelled really belong in a Physics 101 course. (At least the technical version, if not the "Physics for Liberal Arts majors" one.) But turn the question around. While I'm not a historian of math or science, I'd guess that the only reason we even have a cross product, or a dot product, is that they arise naturally from physics, and replace more complicated methods like quaternions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_product#History
Dec 10, 2019 at 11:43	comment	added	OrangeDog		It is correct that the core reason why they are used is because they give the right answer. That's all there is to it. Everyone else is answering a different level of "why".
Dec 9, 2019 at 19:45	comment	added	Tom		This is a uselessly vague statement, how do they enable us to create models? What is it that can be modelled using a cross product? What phenomena can be described using the cross product? Why the cross product and not some other similar product?
Dec 9, 2019 at 3:54	history	answered	jamesqf	CC BY-SA 4.0