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In the natural sciences, a vector quantity (also known as a vector physical quantity, physical vector, or simply vector) is a vector-valued physical quantity. [9] [10] It is typically formulated as the product of a unit of measurement and a vector numerical value (), often a Euclidean vector with magnitude and direction.
A Euclidean vector is thus an equivalence class of directed segments with the same magnitude (e.g., the length of the line segment (A, B)) and same direction (e.g., the direction from A to B). [14] In physics, Euclidean vectors are used to represent physical quantities that have both magnitude and direction, but are not located at a specific ...
A three-dimensional vector can be specified in the following form, using unit vector notation: = ^ + ȷ ^ + ^ where v x, v y, and v z are the scalar components of v. Scalar components may be positive or negative; the absolute value of a scalar component is its magnitude.
A bound vector is defined as the combination of an ordinary vector quantity and a point of application or point of action. [1] [4] Bound vector quantities are formulated as a directed line segment, with a definite initial point besides the magnitude and direction of the main vector. [1] [3] For example, a force on the Euclidean plane has two ...
The vector projection (also known as the vector component or vector resolution) of a vector a on (or onto) a nonzero vector b is the orthogonal projection of a onto a straight line parallel to b. The projection of a onto b is often written as proj b a {\displaystyle \operatorname {proj} _{\mathbf {b} }\mathbf {a} } or a ∥ b .
Here α, β, γ are the direction cosines and the Cartesian coordinates of the unit vector | |, and a, b, c are the direction angles of the vector v. The direction angles a, b, c are acute or obtuse angles, i.e., 0 ≤ a ≤ π, 0 ≤ b ≤ π and 0 ≤ c ≤ π, and they denote the angles formed between v and the unit basis vectors e x, e y, e z.
By definition, all Euclidean vectors have a magnitude (see above). However, a vector in an abstract vector space does not possess a magnitude. A vector space endowed with a norm, such as the Euclidean space, is called a normed vector space. [8] The norm of a vector v in a normed vector space can be considered to be the magnitude of v.
The angle θ and axis unit vector e define a rotation, concisely represented by the rotation vector θe.. In mathematics, the axis–angle representation parameterizes a rotation in a three-dimensional Euclidean space by two quantities: a unit vector e indicating the direction of an axis of rotation, and an angle of rotation θ describing the magnitude and sense (e.g., clockwise) of the ...