Objectives
Students will learn how to express a vector in component form using the unit vectors i and j.
Vocabulary
- Vector
- Components
- Magnitude
- Direction
- Angle
About the Lesson
Vectors are used to represent quantities that have both magnitude and direction. There are a number of ways that 2D vectors can be represented. One of these representations involves expressing a vector r in terms of unit vectors i and j. This is known as component form and is expressed as r = ai + bj. A tns file is provided to students for this activity to allow them to become familiar with this form of vector notation.