PHYS 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Itz
15 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
The direction of motion is so important, so we need the language of vectors. A vector is a quantity with both a size (magnitude) and a direction. The magnitude of a vector is represented by the letter without an arrow. In this case, the particle"s speed--the magnitude of the velocity vector _v--is v=5 m/s. The magnitude of a vector, a scalar quantity, cannot be a negative number. The arrow does not indicate that the vector stretches across this distance. The arrow tells us the value of the vector quantity only at the one point where the tail of the vector is placed. All the properties we will discuss in this chapter (addition, subtraction, multiplication, components) apply to all types of vectors, not just to displacement. To describe a vector we must specify both its magnitude and its direction e. g. first number is the magnitude and the second item is the direction.
