Basic Vector Arithmetic

Magnitude of a Vector

The magnitude of a vector can be thought of as the size or the length of the vector. Given that a vector can be represented by an arrow on a coordinate plane then the length of that arrow would be the magnitude.

(3)
\begin{align} |v|=\sqrt{v_1^2+v_2^2+v_3^2} \end{align}

This formula is given in the IB data booklet.

Negative Vectors

Vector Addition & Subtraction

Here's where vectors start to get a bit tricky…

Addition

Subtraction

Multiplication by a Scalar


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