When Does a Cross Product on R^{n} Exist?

Abstract

It is probably safe to say that just about everyone reading this article is familiar with the cross product and the dot product. However, what many readers may not be aware of is that the familiar properties of the cross product in three space can only be extended to R^{7}. The intention of this article is to provide a new constructive elementary proof (i.e. could be included in an linear algebra undergraduate text) of this classical result which is accessible to a wide audience.