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Multivariable calculus
Course: Multivariable calculus > Unit 1
Lesson 5: TransformationsTransformations, part 2
More transformations, but this time with a function that maps two dimensions to two dimensions. Created by Grant Sanderson.
Want to join the conversation?
- I wish I could get more practice questions in the multivariable deck.(12 votes)
- Agreed. This is really interesting, but also really tricky to wrap my head around.
It's easy when the animation plays and you have the function's output all laid out before you. But it being pretty doesn't mean I've mastered it.(10 votes)
- I have completed linear algebra but I cannot connect the transformations from there with calculus. Can anyone just guide me in the right direction, please?(4 votes)
- The guy who made most of these videos(Grant Sanderson) actually has his own YouTube channel, it's called 3Blue1Brown. And he made this video on transformations, which I'm sure would be helpful to you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYB8IZa5AuE
If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend you do. And if you have the time, definitely watch his Linear Algebra and Calculus series, too. They give you all the intuition you need to understand those topics.(4 votes)
- Does anyone know of any programs that can plot these transformations?(5 votes)
- You could create a computer program to create an animation just like Grant Sanderson did. I would recommend using Python because it is easy.(0 votes)
- i am in pre ap math and i flunked my math test on transformations and congruence and rotations i need better help on the transiformations and translations.(4 votes)
- What did the animation show?(2 votes)
- The animation shows all of the points in the input space moving to their corresponding points in the output space. For instance, the point (1,1) on the input space moves to the point (2,0) in the output space. Thinking of functions as transformation is simply another way of representing both the input and output of a function, the same way we use graphs for functions in normal mathematics.(1 vote)
- Anyone know what to do here im in Aldebra 2 honors but havent taken geometry, i'm pretty confused(1 vote)
- What does the author mean by transformations?Couldnt understand(2 votes)
- What the other person said is true in some cases but this is different. In this, he is talking about how the input to the function becomes the output, how the function transforms the input it is given. So the animation shows how each point given to the function is changed by that function.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So in the
last video, I introduced transformations and how you
can think about functions as moving points in one
space to points in another, and here I want to show an
example of what that looks like when the input space is two-dimensional. So this over here is the input space. It's just a copy of the XY plane, and the output space is also
two-dimensional, so the output space, in this case, also
a two-dimensional plane. And what I'm gonna do,
I'm just gonna first play an example of one of these transformations and then go through the details
of the underyling function and how you can understand the
transformation as a result. So here's what it looks like. Here's what we're gonna be going towards. Very complicated, a lot of points moving. Lots of different things happening here, and what's common with this sort of thing, when you're thinking about moving from two dimensions to two dimensions, given that it's really the
same space, the XY plane, you often just think about
the input and output space all at once, and instead just watch a copy of that plane move onto itself. And by the way, when I
say watch, I don't mean that you'll always have
an animation like this just sort of sitting in front of you. When I think about transformations,
it's usually a very vague thought in the back
of my mind somewhere, but it helps to understand what's really going on with the function. I'll talk about that more at the end, but first let's just go
into what this function is. So, the one that I told the
computer to animate here is f of x,y is the input, is equal to x squared plus y squared, as the x component of the output, and x squared minus y squared is the y component of the output. So just to help start understanding this, let's take a relatively
simple point like the origin. So here, the origin, which is zero, zero, and let's think about
what happens to that. f of zero, zero. Well, x and y are both
zero, so that top is zero. And same with the bottom,
that bottom also equals zero. Which means, it's taking
the 0.00 to itself, and if you watch the
transformation, what this means is that the 0.0 stays fixed,
it's like you can hold your thumb down on it, and
nothing really happens to it. And in fact, we call this a
fixed point of the function as a whole, and that kind of terminology doesn't really make sense unless you're thinking of the
function as a transformation. So let's look at another example here. Let's take a point like one, one. f of one, one. So in the input space, let's just kind of start this thing over so we're
only looking at the input. In the input space, one,
one, is sitting right here, and we're wondering
where that's gonna move. So when we plug it in,
x squared plus y squared is gonna be one squared plus one squared, and on the bottom, x
squared minus y squared, one squared minus y squared. Woop, (laughs) minus one squared. I'm plugging things in here. So that's two, zero. Two, zero. Which means we expect this point to move over to two, zero in some way. So if we watch the
transformation, we expect to watch that point move over to here, and again, it can be hard to follow because there's a lot of moving parts, but if you're careful as you watch it, the point will actually land right there. And you can, in principle,
do this for any given point and understand how it
moves from one to another, but you might ask, hey Grant, what is the point of all of this? We have other ways of
visualizing functions that are more precise, and kinda less
confusing, to be honest. Factor fields are a great
way for functions like this, graphs were a great way for functions with one input and one output. Why think in terms of transformations? And the main reason is conceptual. It's not like you'll have an
animation sitting in front of you, and it's not
like you're gonna by hand evaluate a bunch of points
and think of how they move. But there's a lot of different
concepts in math, and with functions, where when you
understand it in terms of a transformation, it gives you
a more nuanced understanding. Things like derivatives, or the
variations of the derivative that you're gonna learn with
multi-variable calculus, there's different ways of understanding it in terms of stretching or squishing space and things like this, that doesn't really have a good analog in terms
of graphs or vector fields. So it adds a new color
to your understanding. Also, transformations are a super important part of linear algebra. There will come a point
when you start learning the connection between linear algebra and multi-variable calculus. And if you have a strong
conception of transformations, both in the context of linear algebra and in the context of
multi-variable calculus, you'll be in a much better
position to understand the connection between those two fields.