PHYS 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Equations For A Falling Body, Projectile Motion, Pythagorean Theorem
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Components projections of a vector along the axes of a rectangular coordinate system. Vector a in a rectangular coordinate system can be expressed as sum of two vectors ax and ay. Ax and ay are component vectors of vector a. *recall that all vectors have arrow above the bold letter. Y component and x component can be either positive or negative cos =ax/a sin =ay/a. These two components form a right triangle and a hypotenuse with a magnitude of a. Therefore the pythagorean theorem and the definition of tan can apply: To solve for take the inverse of tan. *if vector lies in the second or third quadrant, calculator will not give right answer so you will need to add 180 to it. An object"s displacement is defined as change in its position vector: Average velocity during a time interval is its displacement divided by change in time.
