Let me have a go. I'll use an asciified version of the symbols, with * to mean multiplication of two scalars,, to mean raising one scalar to the power of another, and _ to mean taking a component of a vector.
ab = a.b + a^b
a.b = a_x * b_x + a_y * b_y + a_z * b_z
a^b = (a_x * b_y - b_x * a_y) (x^y)
+ (a_x * b_z - b_x * a_z) (x^z)
+ (a_y * b_z - b_y * a_z) (y^z)
ab = (a_x * b_x + a_y * b_y + a_z * b_z)
+ (a_x * b_y - b_x * a_y) (x^y)
+ (a_x * b_z - b_x * a_z) (x^z)
+ (a_y * b_z - b_y * a_z) (y^z)
So if a = (1, 2, 3) and b = (4, 5, 6): ab = (1 * 4 + 2 * 5 + 3 * 6)
+ (1 * 5 - 4 * 2) (x^y)
+ (1 * 6 - 4 * 3) (x^z)
+ (2 * 6 - 5 * 3) (y^z)
= 32 + -3 (x^y) + -6 (x^z) + -3 (y^z)
The dot product makes a scalar, the wedge product makes a bivector, and the geometric product makes a scalar plus a bivectorYou will note that the scalar part is much bigger than the coefficients of the bivector part. That's because the input vectors are actually quite similar - pointing z-by-y-z, with a little bit of x. Hence, their projection onto each other is large, whereas the parallelogram they form is quite small (long and thin). The dot product measures the former, the wedge product the latter.
Have i got that right?
EDIT And to clarify this:
> For any basis vector, such as the x axis, the result [of taking the geometric product with itself] is 1
That '1' isn't the scalar number 1, it's the scalar-plus-bivector 1 + 0 (x^y) + 0 (x^z) + 0 (y^z).
Having an algebra that corresponds to geometric operations is good because you get a high-level framework for how to manipulate quantities instead of having to do things case by case.