Objectives of Physics 108
 Learn about the different engineering disciplines
 Learn about professionalism in engineering
 Become a better problem solver
 Develop teaming skills

Why Active/Collaborative Learning?
 Active
 Countless studies have shown improvement in:
 short-term retention of material,
 long-term retention of material,
 ability to apply material to new situations
 Collaborative
 Engineering teams are used in industry and usually make the best use of time

Consulting
Architecture
Astronomy
Engineering
Mechanical
Electrical
Civil

See Notes

 Scalar Quantity
 a quantity that has magnitude but not direction
 Vector Quantity
 a quantity that has both magnitude and direction

Vector Quantities
 force
 e.g. 20 Newtons Eastward
 velocity
 e.g. 20 meters/second North
 acceleration
 e.g. 9.8 m/s 2 downward

 length
 e.g. 93,000,000 miles
 mass
 e.g. 180 kg
 speed
 e.g. 186,000 miles/second

 an arrow drawn to scale used to represent a vector quantity
 vector notation
F

 Resultant
 the sum of vectors
 Methods of Vector Addition
 tip-to-tail method (polygon method)
 component method

Tip-to-Tail Method
 Example 1: Add these vectors using the tip-to-tail method.
+
A
B

Tip to Tail Method
A + B = C
C
B
A

Component Method y

A y

A

A x x

Notes on Components
Components are vectors

A
A y

A x

A x


A y


A

Lengths of Components

A q
A x

A x
= A cos q
A y
= A sin q

A y

If Components are Known
A
2 x

A
2 y

A
2 q 
Tan

1
(A y
/A x
)

 Unit Vector
 magnitude of 1 and a direction iˆ , jˆ , kˆ
R

R x iˆ

R y jˆ

R z kˆ