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Thadis
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Homework Statement
Prove the following statements about the inner product of two complex vectors with the same arbitrary numbers of components.
(a)<u|w>=<w|u>*
(b)|<u|w>|^2=|<w|u>|^2
Homework Equations
1. <u|w>=(u*)w
2. (c_1+c_2)*=c_1*+c_2*
3. c**=c
4. ((c_1)(c_2))*=(c_1*)c_2*
The Attempt at a Solution
I am having to do this for my Honors physics class in College and am in a Section of entry level Quantum Mechanics. Though I have yet been in a math class that has covered any sort of complex number math so I have been very lost when it comes to some of math that you do with complex numbers. I appologize if I should of posted this in a physics forum but I felt like since this is a math focused one it would be appropriate here.
For problems (a) I believe I have a solution done. What I basically did is use equation 1 to expand into a sum of n complex conjugate of u times n w's. After this then I used rule 2 and 3 to show that the two sides of the equation are equal.
For problem (b) though I have no idea even really how to do the squaring of the dot product. I assumed I would treat it like finding the inner product of the two vectors like in the previous problem and then squaring it but after that I have no idea what to do as the two sides are still not the same.