1: Introduction To Physics
( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)
Thumbnail: A signpost gives information about distances and directions to towns or to other locations relative to the location of the signpost. Distance is a scalar quantity. Knowing the distance alone is not enough to get to the town; we must also know the direction from the signpost to the town. The direction, together with the distance, is a vector quantity commonly called the displacement vector. A signpost, therefore, gives information about displacement vectors from the signpost to towns. (credit: modification of work by “studio tdes”/Flickr).