So doing a question on the area of a parallelogram spanned by 2 vectors, a=(3,-3,1) and b=(-12,12,-4) and got a result of the cross product of a and b, which was (0,0,0) and tried to find the magnitude of the point. However it turned up to be 0 anyway (as I thought it would), so how can it be 0?
2026-03-27 16:21:41.1774628501
Area of a Parallelogram spanning 2 vectors
196 Views Asked by Bumbble Comm https://math.techqa.club/user/bumbble-comm/detail At
1
When two vectors are in the same direction, they do not form a parallelogram to have an area.
That is why your answer is correctly 0.
The vectors in this case are called co-linear that means they are on the same line so there is no area formed by them.