direction
Direction is just as important as distance in describing motion. For example, if Mia told a friend how to reach the post office from her house, she couldnt just say, "go 3 kilometers. " The friend might end up at the park instead of the post office. Mia would have to be more specific. She could say, "go west for 2 kilometers and then go north for 1 kilometer. " When both distance and direction are considered, motion is a vector. A vector is a quantity that includes both size and direction. A vector is represented by an arrow. The length of the arrow represents distance. The way the arrow points shows direction. The red arrows in Figure above are vectors for Mias route to the school and post office. If you want to learn more about vectors, watch the videos at these URLs:.