Question

Respond to the following for a discussion for College Physics 1. Please write in paragraph form. Thanks!

• How do we add and subtract scalars and vectors? Give examples.
• Describe in your own words, force and equilibrium. Give examples.

Answer 1

Scalars are quantities that are fully described by a magnitude (or numerical value) alone.Hence addition of scalars is just adding their numerical values provided that all the scalars involved in the addition are of same units.The same rule applies to subtraction of scalars.For example,if we have a ball of mass 3kgs and a ball of mass 4kgs, the net mass of the balls is 7kgs. Vectors are quantities that are fully described by both a magnitude and a direction.The vector addition follows parallelogram law.The so-called parallelogram law gives the rule for vector addition of two or more vectors. For two vectors and , the vector sum
A +B
is obtained by placing them head to tail and drawing the vector from the free tail to the free head. In Cartesian coordinates, vector addition can be performed simply by adding the corresponding components of the vectors, so if
a, a2* ..., an)
and
B = (bi , b2 , , bn)

A+B=(ai+bi , a, + b2 , ,an + bn). Suppose there is a force of 3N acting in east direction and another force of 4N acting in north direction,the the net force is 5N acting in the north east direction.

A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another object. Whenever there is an interaction between two objects, there is a force upon each of the objects. When the interaction ceases, the two objects no longer experience the force. Forces only exist as a result of an interaction.For example,the earth exerts a gravitational force on the moon.A body is said to be in equilibrium if the sum of the forces acting on the body is equal to zero.For example,We are able to stand still on the ground because the sum of gravitational force and normal force is zero.