Magnetic Vectors
Purpose
Brightly colored magnetic arrows attach to a blackboard to visually demonstrate vector addition and subtraction. Students see tip-to-tail addition, closed vector loops, and how multiple vectors combine to form a resultant.
Figure 1:
Closed vector loop demonstrating that vector addition around a closed path yields zero resultant. This configuration illustrates vector addition using the tip-to-tail method and shows how vectors form a complete cycle.
Figure 2:
Collection of magnetic vectors in different colors, lengths, and orientations. The variety allows demonstration of multiple vector operations including addition of parallel and perpendicular components, and construction of resultant vectors.
Figure 3:
Five-vector system forming a closed polygon demonstrates vector addition sequence. This configuration shows how multiple vectors can be added sequentially using the tip-to-tail method to verify closure.
Demo Apparatus
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