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
A vector is a magnitude plus a direction. If I’m in my car going 60 kph due north, there’s a magnitude (my speed of 60 kph) and a direction (north). That vector can be canceled out – like let’s say my car is on a big, crazy conveyor belt that’s going 60 kph due south – now those two vectors (call them +60 and -60) cancel each other out, and I don’t move.
A scalar is only a magnitude, with no direction. Mass is an easy one, because if you weigh 75 kg or whatever, there’s no up, down, north, south, or anything about it. It’s just mass. There’s no way to reverse mass to cancel that out like you could with a vector – it’s just a data point. Though if you added in a direction, you could create a vector – like if you factor in gravity, now my mass is exerting a force (G) downward (because gravity pulls down relative to me). If you cancel that out with the same force going up, there’d be no net force acting on me, because +G and -G will cancel out. But even though the vectors would cancel out, that scalar number of my mass is still the same, because scalars don’t have a direction and can’t cancel each other. I’d just be floating with the same mass.
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