Calculating the magnitude of a vectorMagnitude

The magnitude of a vector is its size. It can be calculated from the square root of the total of the squares of of the individual vector components.

Part of MathsGeometric skills

Magnitude

The magnitude tells us the size of the vector.

If \(\overrightarrow {PQ} = \left( {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} a\\ b\\ c \end{array}} \right)\) then the magnitude of \(\overrightarrow {PQ}\) is written as \(\left| {\overrightarrow {PQ} } \right|\) and is calculated by the formula below:

\(\left| {\overrightarrow {PQ} } \right| = \sqrt {{a^2} + {b^2} + {c^2}}\)