Experiment 2

Vector Addition

Scalars and Vectors

A scalar quantity is one that can be described by a single number: temperature, speed, mass

A vector quantity deals inherently with both magnitude and direction: velocity, force, displacement

Vector Addition and Subtraction

AB A

Scalars
A quantity that has magnitude only Length, temperature, mass, time, speed, work, power and energy 3 C, 3kg, 3s, 3J

Vectors
A geometric entity that is characterized by a magnitude and direction

Velocity, momentum, acceleration, torque

3m North, 4ft 30 South of East

Objective

Determine the resultant displacement by the use of the component method, parallelogram method and polygon method To show that the vector addition is commutative and associative

Theory

Operations on Vectors
Vector Addition
e.g. R= A+B+C

Vector Subtraction e.g. R = A-B-C

Dot Product Method e.g. A B = a1b1 + a2b2

Vector Addition
Polygon Method Parallelogram Method Component Method

Polygon Method
head to tail method two vectors are added in such a way that the terminal point of one vector is connected to the initial point of another. Resultant is the vector from the initial point of A to the terminal point of B

R
C

Parallelogram Method
Vectors are drawn at a common origin and an imaginary parallelogram is sketched such that the resultant vector is the diagonal of the parallelogram

R A

Component Method
Involves using trigonometric functions to determine the resultant vector. The vectors are broken down into components: x-component being the projection of the vector at x-axis. y-component as the projector at y-axis.

 Makes reference to the components applied to right triangles. x-component Ax= Acos (Ax is the magnitude of vector & is the direction of vector). Y-component Ay= Asin (Ay is the magnitude of vector & is the direction of vector).

Methodology

Materials
meter stick, chalk, graphing paper and protractor

Table 1: Determination of the Resultant using the Polygon Method (Activity 1)

Trial 1 Magnitude of R % error of magnitude Direction of R % error of direction Trial 2 Trial 3

Table 2: Determination of the Resultant using the Parallelogram Method (Activity 2)

Trial 1

Trial 2

Length of arrow representing R Magnitude of R

% error of magnitude Direction of R % error of direction

Table 3: Determination of the Resultant using the Component Method (Activity 3)

x-component y-component

A
B C summation