Chapter 3 Flashcards
Quantity with magnitude but no direction
Scalar
Vector sum of two or more vectors
Resultant vector
Sum of two or more vectors
Resultant
Speed in given direction
Velocity
Rules that apply to adding vectors together
Vector addition
Quantity that has both magnitude and direction
Vector
Path of a projectile through the air
Trajectory
Start point of a vector; opposite to the head or tip of the arrow
Tail
Study of how different observers moving relative to each other measure the same phenomenon
Relativity
Maximum horizontal distance that a projectile travels
Range
Velocity of an object as observed from a particular reference frame
Relative velocity
Motion of an object that is subject only to the acceleration of gravity
Projectile motion
Displacement of an object as a function of time
Motion
Object that travels through the air and experiences only acceleration due to gravity
Projectile
Length or size of a vector; magnitude is a scalar quantity
Magnitude (of a vector)
Study of motion without regard to mass or force
Kinematics
Method adding vectors in which the tail of each vector is placed at the head of the previous vector
Head-to-tail method
End point of a vector; the location of the tip of the vector’s arrowhead ; also referred to as the “tip”
Head (of a vector)
Orientation of a vector in space
Direction (of a vector)
Piece of a vector that points in either the vertical or the horizontal direction; every 2-d vector can be expressed as a sum of two vertical and horizontal vector components
Component (of a 2-d vector)
Refers to the interchangeability of order in a function; vector addition is commutative because the order in which vectors are added together does not affect the final sum
Commutative
Study of relative velocities in situations where speeds are less than about 1% of the speed of light - that is, less than 3000 km/s
Classical relativity
Method of determining the magnitude and direction of a resultant vector using the Pythagorean theorem and trigonometric identities
Analytical method
Frictional force that slows the motion of objects as they travel through the air; when solving basic physics problems, air resistance is assumed to be zero
Air resistance
