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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Linear Motion
A ball is thrown at a velocity of at an angle of from the horizontal. What are the ball's horizontal and vertical velocities?
There is not enough information to solve this problem
The velocity of can be broken into horizontal and vertical components by using trigonometry. Think of the figure below, where x and y velocity components of the total velocity are shown.
Use the total velocity, the x-component, and the y-component to form a right triangle below.
Treating as the hypotenuse, x-component as the leg adjacent, and y-component as the leg opposite, you can conclude that the velocities are related through trigonometric identities.
Plugging in the given values, we can solve for the x and y velocity components.
Example Question #1 : Linear Motion
Which answer choice below includes only scalar quantities?
Displacement, time, acceleration
Force, time, velocity
Velocity, displacement, force
Distance, speed, time
Acceleration, energy, displacement
Distance, speed, time
Scalar quantities are those that can be described with magnitude only, as opposed to vectors, which include both magnitude and direction components. Distance, speed, and time are all scalars. Displacement is not a scalar, as it involves both the distance and the direction moved from a starting point. Velocity also includes a direction component, and is therefore a vector quantity.
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