88 lines
4.1 KiB
Org Mode
88 lines
4.1 KiB
Org Mode
---
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title: "Learning some Lie theory for fun and profit "
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date: 2020-11-10
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toc: false
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---
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[fn::{-} The phrase "for fun and profit" seems to be a pretty old
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expression: according to the answers to [[https://english.stackexchange.com/q/25205][this StackExchange question]],
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it might date back to Horace's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Poetica_(Horace)][/Ars Poetica/]] ("prodesse et
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delectare"). I like the idea that books (and ideas!) should be both
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instructive and enjoyable...]
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While exploring [[./quaternions.html][quaternions]] and the theory behind them, I noticed an
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interesting pattern: in the exposition of
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cite:sola2017_quater_kinem_error_state_kalman_filter, quaternions and
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rotations matrices had exactly the same properties, and the derivation
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of these properties was rigorously identical (bar some minor notation
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changes).
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This is expected because in this specific case, these are just two
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representations of the same underlying object: rotations. However,
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from a purely mathematical and abstract point of view, it cannot be a
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coincidence that you can imbue two different types of objects with
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exactly the same properties.
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Indeed, this is not a coincidence: the important structure that is
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common to the set of rotation matrices and to the set of quaternions
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is that of a /Lie group/.
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* Why would that be interesting?
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From a mathematical point of view, seeing a common structure like this
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should raise alarm signals in our heads. Is there a deeper concept at
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play here? If we can find that two objects are two examples of the
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same abstract structure, maybe we'll also be able to identify that
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structure elsewhere, maybe where it's less obvious. And then, if we
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prove interesting theorems on the abstract structure, we'll
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essentially get the same theorems on every example of this structure,
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and /for free!/ (i.e. without any additional work!)[fn:structure]
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[fn:structure]{-} When you push that idea to its extremes, you get
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[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory][category theory]], which is just the study of (abstract) structure. This
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in a fun rabbit hole to get into, and if you're interested, I
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recommend the amazing [[https://www.math3ma.com/][math3ma]] blog, or
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cite:riehlCategoryTheoryContext2017 for a complete and approachable
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treatment. cite:fongSevenSketchesCompositionality2018 gives an
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interesting perspective on why category theory is interesting in the
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real world.
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We can think of it as a kind of factorization: instead of doing the
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same thing over and over, we can basically do it /once/ and recall the
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general result whenever it is needed, as one would define a function
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and call it later in a piece of software.
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* Important structure
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Continuing on the example of rotations, what common properties can we
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identify?
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1. Quaternions and rotation matrices can be multiplied together (to
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compose rotations), have an identity element, along with nice
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properties.
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2. Quaternions and rotation matrices can be differentiated, and we can
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map them with usual vectors.
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These two group of properties actually correspond to common
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mathematical structures: a /group/ and a /differentiable manifold/.
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You're probably already familiar with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_(mathematics)][groups]], but let's recall the
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basic properties:
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- It's a set $G$ equipped with a binary operation $\cdot$.
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- The group is closed under the operation: for any element $x,y$ in G,
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$x \cdot y$ is always in $G$.
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- The operation is associative: $x \cdot (y \cdot z) = (x \cdot y)
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\cdot z$.
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- There is a special element $e$ of $G$ (called the /identity
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element/), such that $x \cdot e = e \cdot x$ for all $x \in G$.
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- For every element $x$ of $G$, there is a unique element of $G$
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denoted $x^{-1}$ such that $x \cdot x^{-1} = x^{-1} \cdot x = e$.
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A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiable_manifold][differentiable manifold]] is a more complex beast. Although the
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definition is more complex, we can loosely imagine it as a surface (in
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higher dimension) on which we can compute derivatives at every
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point. This means that there is a tangent hyperplane at each point,
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which is a nice vector space where our derivatives will live.
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* References
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