this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] sanosuke001@lemmynsfw.com 76 points 6 months ago (4 children)

What do you mean? A vector is a direction and magnitude!

[–] deaf_fish@lemm.ee 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they mean std::vector in C++?

[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's a terrible name. The math answer is what I would give.

[–] expr@programming.dev 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's not a terrible name, since it's derived from the mathematical construct of vectors as n-tuples. In the case of vectors in programming, n relates to the size of the underlying array, and the tuple consists of the elements of the vector.

[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

That makes sense.

[–] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 3 points 6 months ago

I myself was confused, when I first saw what a vector did in practice.
Really bad name.

But then I didn't take Comp Sci.

[–] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

The only correct answer for a 101 introduction. It’s an incredible powerful intuition even in contexts where vectors are seemingly used as a list of numbers.

[–] SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago

You can also define a vector by the equivalent “sides of the right triangle”. In 2D, the x,y coordinates. In computer science, vectors are n-tuples, so they represent a math/physics vector but in n-dimensions.

[–] solarbabies@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Yes, and as linear algebra teaches, to convert a vector from direction and magnitude to a list of numbers (components), follow these steps:

  1. Let the magnitude of the vector be represented by the symbol |A| or A.
  2. Let the direction of the vector be represented by the angle θ, which is measured counterclockwise from the positive x-axis.
  3. The x-component of the vector is given by: Ax = |A| cos(θ)
  4. The y-component of the vector is given by: Ay = |A| sin(θ)

The vector can now be represented as a list of numbers: A = (Ax, Ay)

For example, if a vector has a magnitude of 5 units and a direction of 30° counterclockwise from the positive x-axis, its components would be:

Ax = 5 cos(30°) ≈ 4.33 units Ay = 5 sin(30°) ≈ 2.50 units

The vector can now be written as A = (4.33, 2.50)

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