Vectors

Scalar: A quantity like mass or temperature, which only has a magnitude.

Vector: A quantity like heat flux or force which has both a magnitude and a direction; denoted by a bold faced character (a), an underlined character (a), or a character with an arrow on it (image002.gif (183 bytes)).

Resolution of a Vector: A vector can be resolved along different directions using the parallelogram rule. The figure shows how one resolves vector c into components a and b which are along the given directions (i and j are the unit vectors; vectors of unit length).

        image005.gif (685 bytes)                       image003.gif (1047 bytes)  

Vector Addition: Vector Addition follows the parallelogram law described in the figure.

image006.gif (537 bytes)                   image007.gif (1613 bytes)

image009.gif (514 bytes)

 

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