(Honors read this too) AP Vector Lab

Several of you in your labs added vectors as if they are simple numbers.

First of all you were to supposed to read your ansers from your sketches , measuring the resultants with a ruler and then converting to Newtons of force using your scales ( such as 5 cm = 1 N or whatever you chose). Thus, you should have been addign numbers at all but pictoral vectors.

Second: a 2 dimensional vector is not a number. It is a pair of numbers i.e. the x component and the y component or the East component and the North component. Sums of vectors are found by adding all the x compoenents to get the resulting x component and then the y components to get the resulting y component. The result or resultant is a new vector also comprising two numbers: its x component and its y component.

Magnitude has no sign. It has the value = square root of (x component ^2 + y component^2). It can be found from the length of the vector x scale factor For example the magnitude of the force = 7 cm measured x .2 N /cm = 1.4 N