The two adjacent sides of a parallelogram are and
Find the unit vector parallel to one of its diagonals. Also, find its area.
Let ABCD be a parallelogram with sides AB and AC given.
We have and
We need to find unit vector parallel to diagonal.
From the triangle law of vector addition, we have
Let the unit vector in the direction of be
.
We know unit vector in the direction of a vector is given by
.
Recall the magnitude of the vector is
Now, we find.
So, we have
Thus, the required unit vector that is parallel to diaonal is
.
Now, we have to find the area of parallelogram ABCD.
Recall the area of the parallelogram whose adjacent sides are given by the two vectors and
is
where
Here, we have (a1, a2, a3) = (2, –4, 5) and (b1, b2, b3) = (1, –2, –3)
Recall the magnitude of the vector is
Now, we find.
Thus, area of the parallelogram is square units.