From bug-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Mon Jan 18 19:59:24 1999
Subject: Speed up the cross product
From: "April G Gruhn" <gudongfe at pilot dot msu dot edu>
To: bug-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 19:59:41 -0600 (CST)

I was just hacking on octave. Decided to try one of my linear programming
tricks:

a=[1 3 1]
b=[1 2 3]
cross(a,b)
  7 -2 -1
  # takes several

construct the matrix:

jaynes=[0 -1 3; 1 0 -1; -3 1 0]
jaynes * b
 # gives error

b * jaynes
  -7 2 1
  #minor error since  A x B = -(B x A)

any ways the answer was instantaneous (better code). You didn't do this using
determinants, did you? I took this idea out of a paper by ET Jaynes, Physical
Review Vol 98 Num 4. pp 1099-1105. Same matrix also shows up in Powel and
Crassman

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