Cambridge O Level Additional Mathematics · Syllabus 4037 · Vectors in Two Dimensions
Vector Addition
What is Vector Addition?
The operation that combines two vectors into a single vector by adding their corresponding components, so that (a, b) plus (c, d) equals (a + c, b + d). Geometrically the same sum is obtained by placing the start of the second vector at the tip of the first and joining the original start to the final tip, which is the triangle law, or by drawing both vectors from a common point and taking the diagonal of the parallelogram they span. The result is called the resultant. Vector addition is commutative and its magnitude is generally less than the sum of the two separate magnitudes, being equal to it only when the two vectors point in the same direction.
This definition is part of the Vectors in Two Dimensions chapter in Cambridge O Level Additional Mathematics.