PHYSIC 181 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Euclidean Vector, Pythagorean Theorem, Parallelogram
6 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Vectors quantities are described with both magnitude and direction; these are called vectors. Many physical quantities can be described with just a number often treating as being independent of any particular spatial orientation; these are called a scalars. Examples include an object having mass (cid:1865), a reaction lasting time (cid:1872), or a room having temperature . On the other hand, some often represented mathematically as bold characters, like vector , or as characters with arrows on top of them, like vector . A two-dimensional vector requires two numbers to characterize, and we will do this in two different ways. We can think of a vector in a polar coordinate mindset it has some magnitude and some direction. y counterclockwise from the positive x-axis. The magnitude we can represent as the length of the arrow, this is typically counterclockwise angular displacement from the horizontal position.
