I read about it and did some googling, but didn’t really understand it. I was hoping someone here could break it down for me. I’d appreciate both examples and definitions on the terms, as well as of course, an explanation.
In: Mathematics
If I walk a mile, and then walk another mile, I’ve walked 2 miles. This is a scalar distance. I don’t know how far it will be to go back. I might have walked a mile north and a mile west. Or a mile north and a mile south. All I want to know is how far I’ve travelled.
Picture a modern city. The streets are laid out as a grid. I walk a mile north, a mile east and a mile south. To get back home, I just need to go a mile west. These are vectors. I can add them together by all th north parts together all the East parts together. So if I go 2 blocks north, a block east, a block north and 3 blocks east, it will be the same as if I go 3 blocks north and 4 blocks east.
It tends to be important in physics. A VTOL jet thrusts at an angle. They even call this “vectored” thrust. The downward component pushes against gravity. The backward component pushes the plane forwards.
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