In the literature, we come across well-established concepts and
sufficiently rich results concerning topics such as the rational approximation
of real functions to a real variable, real orthogonal polynomials
to a real variable, the acceleration of convergence of a real sequence,
and so on. When we need to extend these same concepts to the vector
case, we are confronted with the inadequacy of the algebraic structures
of a vector space. So, for example, an empirical construction of an
"inverse" of a non-zero vector
was given by the formula
and has
been used in many generalizations. Clearly, this "inverse" has no
algebraic meaning, given the absence, in a vector space, of an internal
multiplicative law and consequently of a neutral element. This "inverse"
is referred to in the literature as the Samelson inverse or the Moore-Penrose
pseudo-inverse, to emphasize the deficiency of the existence of the
inverse of a vector in the algebraic sense.
The introduction of universal Clifford algebra associated with
a real vector space
provided with a non-degenerate symmetric bilinear
form, was motivated by the need to construct an internal multiplicative
law such that the new structure (Clifford algebra) is an algebra,
containing the space
. The algebra is associative, non-commutative. The
body
the body
quaternions are simple early
examples of Clifford algebra. Although it is not integral in general,
any non-zero vector
from
considered as a Euclidean vector space, has one
inverse and only one in the algebraic sense, in the Clifford algebra
associated with
...