Doe the commutative property of addition stay true for vector addition? Does it matter which order they are added in? [edited by - Mulligan on October 15, 2002 2:55:23 PM]

Yep! and Nope!

v1 and v2 are vectors...
x1, y1, x2, y2 are scalars...

v1 = (x1,y1)
v2 = (x2,y2)

v1+v2 = (x1+x2,y1+y2)

v2+v1 = (x2+x1, y2+y1)

x2+x1 = x1+x2 and
y2+y1 = y1+y2 by commutative property, SO...

(x1+x2,y1+y2) = (x2+x1, y2+y1)

and therefore...
v1+v2 = v2+v1

*trumpet fanfare, crowd cheers passionately*


[edited by - Waverider on October 15, 2002 2:59:11 PM]

quote:

---

Original post by Waverider
Yep! and Nope!

---

What do you mean ''nope''? Vector addition is commutative, full stop.

Curiously,

Timkin

I think the ''nope'' was referring to the second question - ''Does it matter which order they are added in?''

No, it does NOT matter what order they are added in.