In mathematics and physics, quantities with both magnitude and direction are called vectors (also called vectors), which correspond to quantities in mathematics and scalars in physics. In mathematics, there are both magnitude and direction, and the quantity that follows the parallelogram law is called vector. There are directions and sizes, which are divided into free vectors and fixed vectors. In mathematics, a quantity with only a size and no direction is called a quantity, and in physics it is called a scalar. Such as distance, mass, density, temperature, etc. Note: The vector in linear algebra (real number space/complex number space) refers to the ordered array of n real numbers/complex numbers, which is called n-dimensional vector. α=(a 1, a2, …, an) is called an n-dimensional vector. Where ai is called the i-th component of vector α. ("1" of "a 1" is a subscript, "i" of "ai" is a subscript, and so on) In programming languages, there are also vectors.

A vector has a starting point and a direction. Usually represented by line segments with arrows. Vectors were originally applied to physics. Many physical quantities such as force, velocity, displacement, electric field intensity measurement and magnetic induction intensity are vectors. Around 350 BC, Aristotle, a famous ancient Greek scholar, knew that force could be expressed by vectors. The resultant force of the two forces can be obtained by the famous parallelogram rule. The word "vector" comes from directed line segments in mechanics and analytic geometry. Newton, a great British scientist, was the first to use directed line segments to represent vectors. Judging from the history of mathematical development, the vector structure of space has not been recognized by mathematicians for a long time in history. It was not until the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century that people linked the properties of space with vector operations, making vectors have.