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Rotational Transformation 📂Matrix Algebra

Rotational Transformation

2D

The transformation that rotates a vector $\theta$ counter-clockwise on a 2D plane $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ is as follows.

$$ \begin{pmatrix} x^{\prime} \\ y^{\prime} \end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\ \sin \theta & \cos \theta \end{pmatrix} \begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \end{pmatrix} $$

Derivation

By the addition formulas for trigonometric functions, $x^{\prime}, y^{\prime}$ can be written as follows.

$$ \begin{align*} x^{\prime} =&\ \dfrac{1}{r} \cos(\phi + \theta) \\ =&\ \dfrac{\cos \phi}{r} \cos \theta - \dfrac{\sin \phi}{r} \sin \theta \\ =&\ x \cos \theta - y \sin \theta \end{align*} $$

$$ \begin{align*} y^{\prime} =&\ \dfrac{1}{r} \sin(\phi + \theta) \\ =&\ \dfrac{\cos \phi}{r} \cos \theta - \dfrac{\sin \phi}{r} \sin \theta \\ =&\ x \cos \theta - y \sin \theta \end{align*} $$

When represented as a matrix, it looks like this.

$$ \begin{pmatrix} x^{\prime} \\ y^{\prime} \end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\ \sin \theta & \cos \theta \end{pmatrix} \begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \end{pmatrix} $$