Vectors

As we stated before, in physics we make a lot of measurements.

Areas, volumes, densities, speeds, velocities, weights, masses, temperature, pressure and so forth.

To those measurements we assign units, and we learned about the MKS system of units.

There is another aspect on this values that we need to consider, the direction.

In physics we need to differentiate for example a vehicle moving northbound, from a vehicle driving
southbound, or westbound, or eastbound.

Another example is an object, resting on a table, the object can be pushed or pulled to the sides or it can
be lifter upward.

All of this needs to be properly and formally described in physics.

We will use vectors to describe these different situations.

We graph a vector using arrows. Arrows are a convention, and they are helpful to describe direction.

Mathematically, these vector/arrows are associated to the variables that we need to describe.

The velocity has a magnitude, for example the value of the speed that we read on the dashboard is the
magnitude of the velocity. (Often times we call it speed). In order to know the direction, we need to read
the road signs.

In physics we use a system of coordinates to define the position and orientation of the vector.

On the below sketch, v indicates the velocity vector, that is sitting on a system of coordinates.

The red vector v makes an angle α with axis x.

V is the velocity vector, Vy is the y component of the Vector V, and Vx is the X component of the vector V.

We can calculate the magnitudes of Vy and Vx since we know that we have a right triangle, so we can
use trigonometric functions like sinα or cosα. We also know Pythagoras theorem, we helps us to
calculate one side of the triangle when we know the other two sides.

We can fully describe a vector in two different ways:

1) We have the magnitude and the angle; we say that in this case we have the polar coordinates.
2) We have the two components, x and y, in this case we have the rectangular or Cartesian
coordinates.

And we can convert from polar to cartesian and cartesian to polar coordinates.

Examples: (in order to simplify, we are not using units for our examples, just numbers)

A vector A of magnitude 200 makes an angle of 30° with the x axis.

We want to convert these polar components to cartesian:

That means we have to find the x and y components. For this we can use the trigonometric functions:

Vx = adjacent side → adjacent = Vx ; cos α = adjacent/hypotenuse = Vx/V ; here V is the magnitude,

which is 200 in our example. Also we know that α = 30°

Cos 30° = Vx/V → Vx = V. cos 30° = 200 . 0.866 = 173.2 → Vx = 173.2

Vy = V. sin α = V. sin 30° = 200. 0.5 = 100

So that Vx = 173.2 and Vy = 100 are the two cartesian components that describe vector V = 200

Converting from cartesian to polar coordinates:

In this new example we have Vx = 100 and Vy = 50 (once again we will not use units)

From Pythagoras we know that h2 = a2 + o2 then V = h = √𝑎2 + 𝑜 2 → h = [(100)2 + (50)2 ] ½ → h = 111.80

is the magnitude, now we need the angle.

Tangent α = O/A = Opposite side/ Adjacent side = 50/100 = ½

If we have the tangent of the angle, we can find the angle itself with a calculator. In this case we
need the inverse tangent, or also called arctangent function.

Using the calculator, we have that if tg α = 1/5 → α = 0.46 radians = 26.4 °

We can transform radians to degrees knowing that 2π = 360 ° , or we can also use the calculator
to enter angles in degrees.

So now we have both polar coordinates; the angle and the magnitude.

Note: the inverse trigonometric functions are the functions that give the angle when we know the
function itself. They are called arcsin, arccos, and arctg.
Multiplication of vectors by scalars.

Scalar is a magnitude that doesn’t have direction. Examples are volume, density, area, temperature. This
are just examples. Numbers in general are scalars.

Often times we need to multiply vectors by scalars.

Example: Consider a car traveling at Velocity V = 30 miles / hr.

What is the result of accelerating to twice as much? We need to multiply by 2 (a scalar)

We calculate the new velocity Vt = 2. V = 2. 30 miles/hr = 60 miles/hr. (the direction of the vector
velocity remains the same)

We do the same when we need to multiply any vector by any scalar. The direction remains the same,
only the magnitude is affected.