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It was first used by 18th century astronomers investigating planetary revolution around the Sun. [5] The magnitude of the vector is the distance between the two points, and the direction refers to the direction of displacement from A to B.
Displacement is the shift in location when an object in motion changes from one position to another. [2] For motion over a given interval of time, the displacement divided by the length of the time interval defines the average velocity (a vector), whose magnitude is the average speed (a scalar quantity).
By definition, all Euclidean vectors have a magnitude (see above). However, a vector in an abstract vector space does not possess a magnitude. A vector space endowed with a norm, such as the Euclidean space, is called a normed vector space. [8] The norm of a vector v in a normed vector space can be considered to be the magnitude of v.
Historically, vectors were introduced in geometry and physics (typically in mechanics) for quantities that have both a magnitude and a direction, such as displacements, forces and velocity. Such quantities are represented by geometric vectors in the same way as distances , masses and time are represented by real numbers .
The general formula for the escape velocity of an object at a distance r from the center of a planet with mass M is [12] = =, where G is the gravitational constant and g is the gravitational acceleration. The escape velocity from Earth's surface is about 11 200 m/s, and is irrespective of the direction of the object.
Its length represents the distance in relation to an arbitrary reference origin O, and its direction represents the angular orientation with respect to given reference axes. Usually denoted x, r, or s, it corresponds to the straight line segment from O to P. In other words, it is the displacement or translation that maps the origin to P: [1]
The magnitude of the position vector | | gives the distance between the point and the origin. | | = + +. The direction cosines of the position vector provide a quantitative measure of direction. In general, an object's position vector will depend on the frame of reference; different frames will lead to different values for the position vector.
A free vector is a vector quantity having an undefined support or region of application; it can be freely translated with no consequences; a displacement vector is a prototypical example of free vector. Aside from the notion of units and support, physical vector quantities may also differ from Euclidean vectors in terms of metric.