Vectors

Types of Measurements
Most of use are used to scalar quantities
Scalar completely defined by a magnitude alone
Mass Age Temperature

With scalars, 5 + 5 is always 10 and 8 3 is always 5

Types of Measurements
In physics, many measurements are what we call vectors
Vector A measurement that has a direction as well as a magnitude.
Force Velocity Acceleration

When adding and subtracting vectors behave differently

Drawing Vectors
Vectors are represented with arrows.
The head of the arrow represents the direction of the vector The length of the arrow represents the size of the vector
Head

Tail

Vector Math Rules

1. It is important to remember that vectors act independently of each other
Ex. A person swims East across a river flowing south.
The person swimming East does not affect the rivers flow south The River flowing South does not affect the swimmers Easterly travel. The vectors are independent. The river flows south, the swimmer still kicks his feet and flails his arms toward the east. However, the swimmers relative motion is NOT East

Vector Math Rules

2. Vectors are added together by finding the resultant of 2 or more separate vectors.
One method of adding vectors is the Head to Tail method.
Move either vector maintaining the vectors direction and magnitude until you have placed the head of one vector on the tail of the other. Sketch the resultant vector from the tail of one vector to the head of the other vector and calculate its magnitude (length) and its direction.

 How do we find the magnitude of R?

Pythagorean Theorum!

How do we find the direction of R ( )?

SOHCAHTOA!

 A second way to add vectors is to resolve them into their (x,y) components and then sum the individual components

This method is more effective when there are more than 2 vectors involved

Vector Subtraction
To subtract a vector simply add its negative where the negative refers to the negative direction only of the vector.

Vector Multiplication
A scaler multiplied times a vector results in a vector with the same direction but a different magnitude than before.

Law of Cosines
c2 = a2 + b2 - 2abcosA