There are 3 kinds of vectors: Velocity, which shows speed and direction of an object (eg. Driving North at 40km/hr)
Force, which shows the direction of force placed on an object (eg. pushing a cart with 40 kilonewtons east)
Displacement, which shows the distance and direction between points (eg. Going 200m west in 2min)
A vector is normally shown as a directed line segment drawn to a convenient scale. The arrowhead shows direction and the length shows its magnitude.
Shown like so:
The arrowhead is called simply the head. The tail is obviously called the tail. This one could be called AB (Would need an arrow pointing from A to B but I don't know how to do that, sorry folks)
But it could also be displayed as a variable, V for instance (Still needs the arrow, though, ARGH >.<)
There are 4 types of vector relations, most of which are ridiculously obvious it is almost redundant to tell you, but hey, it's a space-filler
Equal Vectors: Vectors that are identical. Same Direction and Magnitude
Opposite Vectors: Vectors of the same magnitude and opposite direction
Collinear Vectors: Multiple vectors on the same line (not so obvious, took me a sec)
Parallel Vectors: Non-collinear vectors of the same direction, but don't need the same magnitude
Directions
There are 3 ways to write the orientation of a vector
Direction of Direction (60 Degrees South of East)
Direction, degree, direction (E 60 S)
As a bearing ( 150 degrees) (Bearings need square brackets, but I do not have them on here) Note: North is 0, East is 90, South is 180, West is 270, etc
Magnitude
Finding magnitude is exceedingly and deceptively simple. Simply find an appropriate scale (eg. 300 km/hr wind on a 1cm=100km/hr would be represented by a 3cm vector)
To draw vectors, use a coordinate plane, DON'T DRAW IT FREEHAND!!!!! IT WILL MESS YOU UP BIG TIME!!
To quote the villain of Despicable Me, OH YEAH! (Sorry)
P.S My apologies for the crappiness of this post, I have never blogged before, any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated
