I just had a pretty basic question. Suppose you have the quadratic form:
$$(u+x)^t V (u+x)$$
If you expand this out, you get something along the lines of
$$u^t V u + x^t V x + u^t V x + x^t V u$$
Is there a way to simplify this; i.e. does the above become:
$$u^t V u + x^t V x + 2u^t V x$$
and why is that the case?
Thank you in advance!