https://youtu.be/YgVnx9kmSMU
PHYS 1101: Lecture Two, Part Six
The next section has to do with the idea of a component description of a vector. They introduce this a little out of order compared to the book, because I think it makes more sense after I’ve already walked you through how to add vectors. I’ve already given you, for example, this picture of one scenario, one method of adding two vectors to give us a resultant.
We’re going to use the component description of a vector a lot throughout this class. We’re going to be dealing with many vectors that are going to be off at some arbitrary or particular angle for the problem, and in the process of solving that problem, of translating the problem into mathematics, carrying out the mathematics of the physical underlying principle, we’re going to have to work with what are called the components of that vector.
Here’s what it is. Let me undo my summary statement here. We has to go back and forth between this, the resultant description, and by that I mean we may have some vector off at some angle, say, a displacement off at some angle. I don’t know, maybe this is 70 degrees up from the horizontal direction. We’re going to have to go from this resultant into breaking this vector down into two components, and think about it of what you’re going to do in this context.
Remember when we had this resultant displacement, so we had a final displacement that was of at this angle.