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School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney
 1. Vectors and scalars
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What is a scalar?

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A scalar is a real number. (Sometimes it will be useful to allow complex numbers as well.)

Examples: mass, volume, temperature, density, electric charge, work, etc.

It is always possible to multiply a vector by a scalar but in general you cannot add a vector and a scalar.

The length of a vector is a scalar.


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Main menu Section menu   button disabled Next section What is a vector? The negative of a vector