Unit-Norm Vectors under Different p-Norms

​
discrete
p
1
2
4
10
∞
continuous
p
1
This Demonstration shows how unit-norm vectors look under different
p
-norms, which are standard norms for finite-dimensional spaces.
In mathematics, a norm is a function that assigns a length (or size) to a vector. The vector is an object in a vector space, and can thus be a function, matrix, sequence, and so on. A
p
-norm is a norm on a finite-dimensional space of dimension
N
defined as
||u
||
p
=
1/p

N
∑
n=1

u
n
p
|

.
This Demonstration shows sets of unit-norm vectors
u
for different
p
-norms.
The norm for
p=1
is called the Manhattan or taxicab norm because
||u
||
1
represents the driving distance from the origin to
u
following a rectangular street grid
||u
||
1
=|x|+|y|.
The norm for
p=2
​
is the usual Euclidean square norm obtained using the Pythagorean theorem
||u
||
2
=
x
2
|
+y
2
|
.
The norm for
p=∞
is simply the maximum over
x
and
y
,
||u
||
∞
=max(x,y).
Vectors ending on the red lines are of unit norm in the corresponding
p
-norm.

References

[1] M. Vetterli, J. Kovačević, and V. K. Goyal, Foundations of Signal Processing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. www.fourierandwavelets.org.
[2] Wikipedia. "Norm." (Jun 12, 2012) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_%28 mathematics %29.

External Links

Norm (Wolfram MathWorld)
Vector Norm (Wolfram MathWorld)
Taxicab Metric (Wolfram MathWorld)

Permanent Citation

Jelena Kovacevic
​
​"Unit-Norm Vectors under Different p-Norms"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/UnitNormVectorsUnderDifferentPNorms/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: June 18, 2012