Product of three octonions

Abstract

This paper is devoted to octonions that are the eight-dimensional hypercomplex numbers characterized by multiplicative non-associativity. The decomposition of the product of three octonions with the conjugated central factor into the sum of mutually orthogonal anticommutator, commutator and associator, is introduced in an obvious way by commuting of factors and alternating the multiplication order. The commutator is regarded as a generalization of the cross product to the case of three arguments both for quaternions and for octonions. It is verified that the resulting additive decomposition is equivalent to the known solution derived and presented by S. Okubo in a cumbersome form.