Oliver Paul

Microsystem Materials Laboratory, University of Freiburg

Tuesday, July 04, 2023, 11:00 - 11:59

Building 102 - SR 01-012

Rotations in 3D space are ubiquitous in science and engineering: material science, computer graphics, inertial navigation, quantum mechanics are just a few of the areas where they play a central role. However, different fields have adopted different descriptions and related techniques to handle problems involving rotations, which definitely is a reason for confusion. Among them, I will discuss

• Rotation matrices (including Euler angles)
• Normal vectors and rotation angles
• Quaternions and the Rodrigues representation and formula
• SU2 matrices

I will show their equivalence and hint at their pros and cons. All sections of the talk will be illustrated by interactive Mathematica animations.