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Direction and Distance
Direction and Distance
A vector describes movement with both magnitude (how far) and direction (which way). If I say "walk 5km north", that's a vector! Vectors are everywhere: wind speed, velocity, force. They're written with arrows or in column form.
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Common Mistakes
X Adding magnitudes instead of vectors
Add components separately
|a| + |b| ≠ |a + b|
X Forgetting negative signs
−a means reverse direction
−(3,4) = (−3,−4)
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 12
A column vector is written as (3 / −2) (3 on top, −2 on bottom). What does this vector represent?
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This topic in real past papers
Every real exam question we've found on vectors (basics), with a full worked answer.