Questions tagged [vectors]
Geometric object with magnitude (length) and direction.
1,293
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Why is the tension $\vec T$ downwards in the system?
Link to video
Doubt:
At pulley $A$, consider the free-body diagram. Why is the tension, $\vec{T}$, in both hands downwards? I know $\vec{T}_2$ is upwards since it is the force acting upwards in ...
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0answers
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If the vector $\vec{A} = 2\hat{i}+4\hat{j}$ and $\vec{B} = 5\hat{i}+p\hat{j}$ are parallel to each other, the magnitude of $\vec{B}$ is? [on hold]
If the vector $\vec{A} = 2\hat{i}+4\hat{j}$ and $\vec{B} = 5\hat{i}+p\hat{j}$ are parallel to each other, the magnitude of $\vec{B}$ is____________
how to solve it?
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1answer
22 views
The sign of $d\mathbf{r}$ when integrating the universal gravitational force in order to define gravitational potential energy [duplicate]
I am trying to find gravitational potential energy by integrating the gravitational force:
$$\mathbf{F}(\mathbf{r}) = - \ G \frac{Mm}{|\mathbf{r}|^2} \ \hat{\mathbf{r}}$$
where $\mathbf{r}$ is the ...
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2answers
56 views
Vertical component of friction
If we have a car of mass $m$ sliding around a banked curve of angle $\phi$ with some coefficent of friction ${\mu}$, then the normal force will be
$$Ncos\phi= mg + {\mu}F_{g}\sin\phi$$
But this ...
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2answers
50 views
Flight time of spherical bullet fired horizontally versus dropped vertically / effect of crosswind on spherical car
Would a spherical bullet fired horizontally from a musket stay aloft longer than a spherical bullet dropped from the same height?
I know two similar questions have been asked (Will a bullet dropped ...
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0answers
82 views
Angle between velocity and acceleration vector, and interpretation of pathway [on hold]
I just started studying mechanics, and I am stuck with the following question:
$$\vec{r}(t)=a \sin(\alpha t^2)\hat{x}+b \cos(\alpha t^2)\hat{y}$$
I was asked to find the formula that expresses the ...
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0answers
25 views
Vector quantities [closed]
Three vectors forces F1,F2 and F3 act on a particle of mass m=3.80kg.
Calculate the magnitude and direction of the net acting on the particle
And calculate the particle acceleration
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1answer
24 views
Electric dipole torque problem
Problem 4.6 from Griffith's book:
To solve it, we construct an image dipole $ \vec p_i$ with opposite polarity then find the torque $ \vec N = \vec p \times \vec E $
I'm having trouble knowing how ...
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1answer
84 views
Is four velocity always given by $U^{\mu} = d x^{\mu}/d\tau$?
I was taught that four-velocity is defined as
$${\bf U} = \frac{d \bf x}{d\tau}$$
and that it has the components
$$U^{\mu} = \frac{d x^{\mu}}{d\tau}$$
where $d\bf x$ is the four displacement and $\...
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1answer
67 views
Is the normalization of the wave-function preserved due to…?
Is the preservation of the inner product the same thing as the vector length of the wave-function staying constant with it's rotation through some R2 plane (ie it's evolution through time), that is ...
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0answers
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I think I broke Vectors [duplicate]
I was working on the following problem, when I ran into some trouble due to some repeated division of vectors into components.
I began by drawing the forces acting on the block.
I pretended that ...
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0answers
69 views
Triangle law of vector addition [migrated]
I've been running my fingers through the internet and books probing why does the triangle law of vector addition works, but I've failed to find a satisfactory answer, rather, any answer at all, for ...
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3answers
105 views
Reason behind vector addition law
What is the reason behind triangle law of vector addition, in other words, how is this really justified?
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2answers
93 views
Relationship between quantum projector operator and projection of vectors
In quantum mechanics, we define the projector operator
$$\hat{P} = |\psi\rangle\langle\psi|$$
And we say that the action of this operator $\hat{P}$ over a ket $|\phi\rangle$ gives us the projection ...
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0answers
34 views
Suppose A and B represent two vectors (insame order), the angle between them being 60 degrees, then why is the resultant wrong? [migrated]
Let's say there are three points A,B and C:
A represents the displacement between points A and B (4 cm to the east) and B represents the displacement between the points B and C (3cm to the northwest)....
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3answers
49 views
Angular momentum and angular velocity
The angular velocity $\vec{\omega}$ lies along the axis of rotation. And the angular momentum $\vec{J}$ is the cross product of $\vec{r} \times \vec{p}$. Which according to me should also lie along ...
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2answers
70 views
Identifying Vehicle Reversing
I am trying to identify if a vehicle is reversing. I have the position of the vehicle, the direction the vehicle is facing (as an angle), and the speed of the vehicle at different time points. Can ...
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3answers
209 views
Magnitude of vector quantities
The gravitational force in the vector form is defined as $$ \vec{F}=-\frac{GMm}{\boldsymbol {r^3}}\vec{r}$$
Many textbooks define its magnitude as $$F_g=-\frac{GMm}{r^2}$$
However, in the derivation ...
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3answers
1k views
Why do some people write the gravitational force as proportional to $\mathbf{r}/|\mathbf{r}|^3$?
I'm reading Mathematical Aspects of Classical and Celestial Mechanics, Second Edition by Arnold, Kozlov, and Neishtadt. It occurred to me that many people like to use third power when mention the law ...
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0answers
4 views
Why are products of vectors just the way they are, and not the other way around? [migrated]
The scalar product and vector product of two vectors $\vec{A}$ and $\vec{B}$ are $AB\cos\theta$ and $AB\sin\theta\space\hat{\eta}$, respectively. They could have been the other way around—that is to ...
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0answers
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Why does the Cross Product have to be perpendicular to the two vectors? [migrated]
I understand that the cross product of two vectors equals the area of the parallelogram. But I don't understand why multiplying the two vectors gets you a vector perpendicular to the two vectors.
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3answers
444 views
How to prove a 4D vector is a 4-Vector?
This is a fairly open ended question.
Given a set of 4 Components, that is, a 4D Vector, what is the process for determining rather or not it is a "4-Vector" as defined in special relativity? I want ...
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5answers
75 views
Intuition of 2D Velocity Vectors [duplicate]
I understand 2D vectors in terms of displacement. For example, Bob moves 3m to the east and 4m to the north, the total change in position (displacement) equals 5m to the north east.
But I don't ...
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1answer
44 views
Geometry with differential angles
In the solution to a problem, the author considers the normal force provided by an arc length of string with a differential subtended angle size, $\textrm{d}\theta$. The author reasons that this ...
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2answers
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What is the meaning of transverse acceleration due to work in special relativity?
If we derive the momentum in Special Relativity we get :
$$
\dfrac{\mathrm{d}\boldsymbol{p}}{\mathrm{d}t} = \dfrac{\mathrm{d}m \gamma \boldsymbol{v}}{\mathrm{d}t} = m\dot{\gamma}\boldsymbol{v}+m\...
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0answers
32 views
Order of positions of tensor/vector components in an inner/outer product
Show that if $T_i$ are the components of covariant vector T, then $S_{ij}=T_iT_j-T_jT_i$ are the components of a skew-symmetric covariant tensor S.
The question is whenever working with equations of ...
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2answers
19 views
Basis of 2D motion analysis
The basic argument for analysing 2D motion is that if we have a projectile we can break its 2D motion into 2 1D motions along 2 perpendicular axes. The motions along these axes and their corresponding ...
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1answer
38 views
Appropriate Vector Diagram for Force
Which of these two vector diagrams is befitting for illustrating exerted force?
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4answers
100 views
Is my understanding of vectors correct?
I recently learned that a vector in mathematics (an element of vector space) is not necessarily a vector in physics. In physics, we also need that the components of the vector on a coordinate ...
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0answers
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How do you calculate the speed of air when it fills a vacuum of 1 cm³?
At different heights, atmospheric pressure is different. If a vacuum was created of say 1 cm³, how would i calculate the velocity of air filling it back in. The adjacent layer of air would obviously ...
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1answer
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Prove acceleration in orbit with newtons second law
I want to prove that the acceleration in a orbit at a given point r=(x,y) is $a=-\frac{GM}{R^3}r$ (My professor said this can be proven by newtons second law, but he never explained in detail how). I ...
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1answer
32 views
Work-Kinetic energy theorem derivation
So I came across this derivation in the book Classical Mechanics by Herbert Goldstein. I don't follow from the second step onwards. I understand that there's a dot product, but how do you compute it? ...
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1answer
33 views
Direction of cross product of two vectors [duplicate]
Are there several ways to find the direction of a×b other than right hand thumb rule?
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1answer
43 views
Question on notation for the inner product of complex vectors [duplicate]
Regarding the wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesquilinear_form#Hermitian_form
you can see that the wiki states that physics defines the inner product for complex vectors as:
$$\langle \, \...
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1answer
44 views
Where does 4N and 3N goes in this diagram?
Two forces of 3 N and 4 N are acting at a point such that the angle between them is 60 degrees. Find the resultant force.
I successfully draw diagram for above sentence:
But I am confused which one ...
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1answer
23 views
Why are the vectors canceled out in this scenario for angular momentum of a particle?
I have a study guide for our next test, and I'm trying to understand the professors answer but I don't understand why i^ * i^ = 0?
Here is his work,
Why do we know that the P Vector is on direction ...
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1answer
77 views
Why should Vector Components of a Weight be Perpendicular to each other?
So this question came to my head this morning. When analyzing such a problem, its easier to break the W component into 2 seperate components, here I've marked the components in Red & Pink arrows.
...
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4answers
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What is the proof of parallelogram law of vector additon?
I have a question. How force can be defined as the magnitude of a ray?
For instance, when we deal with two forces having magnitude 4 N and 5 N working 60 degree apart we solve the resultant by simple ...
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1answer
108 views
Why is $ |\vec F_x| + |\vec F_y| \ge |\vec F| $ for any vector $\vec{F} ?$
I know vectors additions, components, triangle inequalities, also law of cosine when length of vectors components and angle given and any math involved in it, but my question is about physical ...
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2answers
72 views
Why is work done a dot product of force and distance?
Suppose force is applied on an object at an angle theta and the block moves for some distance along x axis
I understand that we take x component of ...
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5answers
845 views
Cross products/avoiding using your hand for the right hand rule in E and M
I am currently learning electromagnetism and I am getting really annoyed using a physical hand to accomplish the right hand rule. I get it, i've seen diagrams, and i've solved problems with it but ...
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2answers
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Differential geometry: If $\vec v = v^i \vec e_i$, then why is $\vec r = r \vec e_r$ in spherical coordinates?
In differential geometry (and later carried over to GR) any abstract vector $\vec v$, exists on its own vector space.
We can then choose to represent this vector in a coordinate basis $\vec v = v^i ...
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2answers
79 views
Do objects move in 2 directions at once?
If a velocity vector of an object can be divided into an x and y component relative to a second object's position, and both objects have gravity that attracts both objects to each other. We then know ...
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0answers
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Magnitude of moment in 3d space
What's the magnitude of moment about O, if the vectors F, r1 and r2 all lie in the z-y plane? I know the magnitude of the moment is the cross product of force and the perpendicular distance from the ...
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0answers
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True Airspeed from Indicated Airspeed, Temperature, and Altitude
I'm working on an aircraft problem to figure out the true heading we need to fly in order to end up where we want with the presence of wind, and I think I have the whole thing figured out except for ...
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8answers
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Formal Definition of Dot Product
In most textbooks, dot product between two vectors is defined as:
$$\langle x_1,x_2,x_3\rangle \cdot \langle y_1,y_2,y_3\rangle = x_1 y_1 + x_2 y_2 + x_3 y _3$$
I understand how this definition ...
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7answers
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Is there centripetal acceleration with velocity of 5 m/s?
So if an object is moving at $5\ \mathrm{m\ s^{-1}}$ in a circle, is it accelerating?
Me and a friend are having a conversation about this.
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4answers
365 views
Is there a scalar acceleration?
Distance is paired with Displacement and it seems to be a bigger idea than just the magnitude of Displacement. Speed is paired with Velocity. I have always thought that there is not such pairing with ...
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8answers
469 views
What actually is the vector of angular momentum?
If an object spins around a central point, it gets angular momentum which is a vector with an orientation dependent on whether its clockwise rotation or anticlockwise, i get that. But what the vector ...
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2answers
53 views
Vectors, their representation and dipole moment
I know that the length of an arrow representing a vector gives represents the magnitude of that vector, now consider a force vector.
$\vec{F}$=m$\vec{a}$ , therefore in space a force vector ...
