AP Physics – Vectors 101 Planet Holloway（美联社物理学101 行星Holloway向量）.pdf

AP Physics – Vectors 101   Good Stuff on Vectors: We’ve briefly mentioned vectors and scalars. The time has now come to undertake a thorough study of the things. Of the two, scalars are the easiest to understand and deal with. See, when you deal with scalars, it’s all very simple, they’re just like everyday numbers -- just use the regular arithmetic stuff that you have laboriously mastered during the past 10 – 12 years. Like adding apples with apples. Dealing with vectors is a whole ‘nuther thang’. It’s more like adding apples and pork bellies together or something. When you add scalars you simply do this: 2 kg + 3 kg = 5 kg. But with vectors, 2 + 3 might equal 4! Lord, how can this be! Well, your basic vectors have both magnitude and direction. If you add two velocities, one that is north at 10 m/s and the other is south at 10 m/s, you end up with zero m/s. Can you see why this is so? The classic way to add vectors is to represent them with arrows, draw them to scale, and then measure out things with a ruler and protractor to see what the answer would be. A vector is represented as an arrow. The arrowhead points in the vector’s direction and the length represents the vector’s magnitude. To represent the magnitude, you have to use a scale to figure out how long to draw the thing. Each vector has a head and a tail. The graphical vector addition method is sometimes called the “head-to-tail” method. You draw one vector, then draw the second vector with its tail on the head of the first. The next vector would be drawn with its tail on the head of the second and so on. The final answer, known as the resultant vector, is found by drawing a vector form the tail of the first vector to the head of the last. It makes no difference in what order you add the vectors as you can see by the drawing below. 33 You will not be r