School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney
 3. Addition and subtraction of vectors
Main menu Section menu   Previous section Next section button disabled The parallelogram rule for addition
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Because non-zero vectors have direction as well as magnitude, adding vectors involves more than simply adding numbers. The sum of two vectors is another vector, and so the definition of addition must give a process for determining both the magnitude and the direction of the sum vector.

There are two equivalent procedures for addition of vectors, called the parallelogram rule and the triangle rule.

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Main menu Section menu   Previous section Next section button disabled The parallelogram rule for addition