Vectors

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Hook

Direction matters

A boat motors north at 5 knots while a current pushes it east at 3 knots. Where does it actually go? You can't just add 5 and 3 — the directions differ. Vectors are quantities that carry both a size and a direction, and they add by following each other's arrows, not by summing their lengths.

A vector is an arrow: it knows how long it is and where it points.