Definition

1. Noun:
   • The resultant vector: A single vector that represents the combined effect of two or more individual vectors. It is obtained by placing the vectors head-to-tail and drawing the vector from the tail of the first to the head of the last, or by adding their corresponding components.

Usage and Examples

• Noun:
  • To find the total force, you must calculate the vector sum of all the individual forces acting on the object.
  • The airplane's actual velocity is the vector sum of its airspeed and the wind velocity.

Advanced Usage

• "To take the vector sum of": This phrase describes the action of performing vector addition.
  • The physicist needed to take the vector sum of the magnetic fields from all the coils.

Variants and Related Words

• Resultant (vector) (n): A synonym for the vector sum; the final, combined vector.
  • The resultant of the two displacements pointed northeast.
• Vector addition (n): The mathematical operation or process of finding a vector sum.
  • Understanding vector addition is fundamental to physics.

Synonyms

• Resultant vector: The final, combined vector.
• Net vector: Emphasizes the single vector representing the total effect.

Related Concepts

• Component: One of the vectors that is part of a vector sum. Vectors are often broken down into perpendicular components (e.g., x and y) for easier addition.
• Parallelogram rule: A geometric method for finding the vector sum of two vectors by completing a parallelogram. The vector sum is the diagonal starting from the common tail of the two vectors.

Noun

1. a vector that is the sum of two or more other vectors