identify quantities that maybe classified as vector?

Question

At least 7 of them

Answer 1

Let's keep it simple. In general a quantity where both magnitude (size) and direction or orientation are important is a candidate for being a vector. For example, if someone wants to know if an arrow will hit a target he or she will need to know if the arrow is going fast enough to reach the target, and if the arrow is going in the right direction. So, velocity can be represented as a vector; it has a size and direction, and both are important. Closely related to velocity is acceleration. To know if your acceleration will let you leave the earth you have to know that you are going faster and faster (accelerating) and you have to know that you are pointed away from the earth.

Position can be thought of as a vector, too. If someone were to ask "Where is Atlanta?" one can't simply say, "Well, it is 100 miles from here." One has to know both what direction and what distance Atlanta is. Closely related to position is orientation. Color a sheet of paper red on one side and blue on the other. Have a friend do the same. Stand back to back so each of you can't see the other. Now hold your paper out in front of you oriented any way you wish (just don't fold it in any way). Now have a third friend talk your second friend into holding his or her paper in the same way. You will quickly see that getting the right color "on top" and the paper tilted in the right direction, and the same height above the ground are all needed to have your paper oriented in exactly the same way. (In math terms you are finding the orientation of the normal vector of the planes.)

Combinations of these quantities can also be thought of as vectors. Force is defined as mass times acceleration (F = ma), and force is a vector. Momentum is defined as mass time velocity (P = mv), so momentum is a vector.

Now for something a bit more complicated. Take a piece of graph paper and pick an origin point and label it 0,0. Now label the vertical line through the origin point the "y" axis and the horizontal line through the origin point the "x" axis. Now pick some point on the graph using the x-axis and y-axis to locate the point. For example, go three steps to the right on the x-axis, and two steps up and you have the point (3,2). Moving left or down would be negative. Going to the left from the origin point 3 steps and up two steps would be the point (-3,2). So, pick a point, say, (4,3) and draw a line from the origin point to the point (4,3). For eye candy, make the line an arrow with the arrow point at (4,3). You now have a vector on the graph paper (the plane). The plane (your paper) can be thought of as the complete collection of all vectors that have their starting point as the origin. Imagine in your mind's eye all the vectors that have a length of 3; what do you have? Think: all the points that are exactly 3 units from the center. A circle! A circle can be thought of as the collection of all vectors with exactly the same length. You can draw with vectors. How cool is that?

HTH

Charles

Answer 2

To ansnsnage's list:

Displacement
Velocity
Acceleration

I'll add:

Force
Momentum
Torque
Electric field

Answer 3

displacement
velocity
acceleration
force

Answer 4

velocity
displacement
acceleration