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How to Measure Vector Shift

Vectors are mathematical quantities with most magnitudes and directions that appear in many areas of science and math. They often represent shifts or changes in the quantities they describe, such as velocity, direction or forces, and therefore calculating the magnitude of that shift can place an important role in many kinds of problems involving vectors.

Instructions

- 1
  Find the shift caused by the vector in each coordinate direction. For vectors denoted by those changes, in the format (x, y) or (x, y, z), the shift in each direction is already given. For vectors in which you know the starting and ending coordinate points, the changes can be calculated by the difference between the two.
- 2
  Add up the squares of the lengths of the vector in each coordinate direction.
- 3
  Take the square root of the sum calculated in Step 2. This square root is the shift caused by the vector and is often called the length or magnitude of the vector.

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