We have heard about the term scalar many times but do we actually understand the real meaning of the term scalar. So here we are going to discuss about its definition, applications, etc.
If we see a scalar quantity in a very basic way then it is a quantity which only has magnitude or which does not depend upon directions and on the other hand a vector quantity is a quantity which magnitude as well as direction. And if we see in the context of linear algebra then we will know that scalar is nothing but a real number. And also there is one property or operation which relates the vectors, in the vector space with the scalars and that is the scalar multiplication. In this operation, we multiply a scalar or a real number with a vector in vector space to get another vector.
We have so many operations and properties related to scalars like scalar product, dot product, etc. But many of us get confused between the scalar multiplication and scalar product as we define the scalar product as when in a vector space, we multiply two vectors to produce a scalar or a number. (know more about Scalar, here)
We can also define scalar as a quantity having only one component which does not change or is invariant under the rotations in the coordinate plane.
Some examples of scalar quantities are length, area, temperature, volume, speed, energy, mass, power, work, etc as they all do not have any directions or does not depend on it.
And some of the vector quantities which depend upon the direction are velocity, acceleration, force, weight, momentum, etc.
We have a matrix related with the term scalar called scalar matrix and is used to represent a matrix of the form KI where the alphabet K is a scalar and I is the identity matrix.
In order to get help in understanding the topics: scalar, simplifying expressions and Tamilnadu Board, you can just visit our next page and In the next session we will discuss about Complex Conjugate.
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