Vector components from magnitude & direction (advanced) (article) | Khan Academy (2024)

Find a vector's components from its magnitude and direction. Direction angle is not given directly.

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  • Jenna Sep

    8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Jenna Sep's post “I used my calculator to a...”

    I used my calculator to answer these questions. Is there any way to solve these without a calculator?

    (47 votes)

    • willy nrobma

      8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to willy nrobma's post “I went to high school wit...”

      Vector components from magnitude & direction (advanced) (article) | Khan Academy (4)

      Vector components from magnitude & direction (advanced) (article) | Khan Academy (5)

      Vector components from magnitude & direction (advanced) (article) | Khan Academy (6)

      I went to high school with trig tables, log tables and a slide rule. Why would anyone not want to us a calculator!

      (112 votes)

  • anissa814

    8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to anissa814's post “Hi, I'm working on some c...”

    Hi, I'm working on some component form of vector questions right now and I understand how to find the components given magnitude and direction as Sal taught in the video. However, what I still don't understand is what the vector components give you... like what does that resultant vector mean? What is it? I would really appreciate it if someone could explain.

    (4 votes)

  • Roxanne Police

    8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Roxanne Police's post “I try using the google ca...”

    I try using the google calculator and I keep getting slightly different results... in the first one, instead of -2.85 and 10.63 I kept getting -2.65 and 10.68. I realy kept trying and retrying, checking and rechecking, and it still remained the same. Anyone else having this problem?

    (5 votes)

    • J E

      8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to J E's post “One thing you should chec...”

      One thing you should check is to see what mode the calculator is in (radians or degrees) if you are in the wrong mode for the measure of angle you are using you will get the wrong answer. If that isn't the problem the only other issue I can think of would be troubles with rounding and/or significant figures.
      Hope this helps!

      (7 votes)

  • Ejay Hall

    7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Ejay Hall's post “what is the component for...”

    what is the component form of the vector 'a' with llall =100, 250 dg, approximate each component to the nearest tenth

    (3 votes)

  • Grace Yuan

    8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Grace Yuan's post “=||u⃗ ||cos(θ)should be ...”

    =||u⃗ ||cos(θ)should be sin(θ) in the solution of Q2 Finding the y-component of vector u.

    (3 votes)

  • Ana Conjuh

    7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Ana Conjuh's post “In my physics class, we s...”

    In my physics class, we see the x and y axis inverted and turned in some problems, I have no idea what quadrant I'm in, how do I determine if (x,y) are pos/neg? Thanks

    (2 votes)

    • Chris O'Donnell

      7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Chris O'Donnell's post “That's really strange. I'...”

      That's really strange. I've never seen anything like that before.

      (1 vote)

  • Dream

    7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Dream's post “if the resultant of 2 equ...”

    if the resultant of 2 equal vectors is twice the magnitude of each of them what will be the angle between the 2 vectors?? THANKS

    (1 vote)

    • kubleeka

      7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to kubleeka's post “If the vectors are equal,...”

      If the vectors are equal, they must have the same direction. So the angle between them is 0.

      (2 votes)

  • Eric

    8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Eric's post “Law of sines works right?”

    Law of sines works right?

    (1 vote)

    • Luis F. Vélez

      8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Luis F. Vélez's post “Yes, but it takes more ti...”

      Yes, but it takes more time, it is easier to use trig functions so x=cos(angle)*magnitude and y=sin(angle)*magnitude.

      (2 votes)

  • rishabh m

    3 years agoPosted 3 years ago. Direct link to rishabh m's post “I was doing the 2nd quest...”

    I was doing the 2nd question with
    x = 10*cos(-50), y = 10*sin(-50)
    is this correct approach?

    (1 vote)

    • Nolan Ryzen Terrence

      2 years agoPosted 2 years ago. Direct link to Nolan Ryzen Terrence's post “Your approach is 95% corr...”

      Your approach is 95% correct except that in the fourth quadrant cosine is positive and sine is negative so vector u:
      ->
      u = (10*cos(50),10*sin(-50))

      (2 votes)

  • Hannah Lee

    4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to Hannah Lee's post “I'm still confused on why...”

    I'm still confused on why for some of the direction angles (in the first step) you would subtract them, but for the others you wouldn't subtract them.

    (1 vote)

    • Aiena

      4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to Aiena's post “Hi Hannah,Measure of th...”

      Hi Hannah,

      Measure of the angle is given to us indirectly.

      Always remember that the vector (looks like a ray) and the POSITIVE x-axis forms the angle.

      Since we are given 75 degrees as our angle, we subtract it from 180 degrees to get 105 degrees. This 75 degrees angle is formed with the vector and negative x-axis.

      I hope this helps.

      Aiena.

      (1 vote)

Vector components from magnitude & direction (advanced) (article) | Khan Academy (2024)
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