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    JEE Mains 2026 Chapter-Wise Weightage – Physics, Chemistry, Math

    Finding Components of a vector Along and Perpendicular to another Vector - Practice Questions & MCQ

    Edited By admin | Updated on Sep 18, 2023 18:34 AM | #JEE Main

    Quick Facts

    • Finding Components of a vector Along and Perpendicular to another Vector is considered one the most difficult concept.

    • 12 Questions around this concept.

    Solve by difficulty

    Let ABCD be a parallelogram such that $\overrightarrow{A B}=\vec{q}, \overrightarrow{A D}=\vec{p}$ and $\angle B A D$ be an acute angle. If $\vec{r}$ is the vector that coincides with the altitude directed from the vertex B to the side AD, then $\vec{r}$ is given by

    Projection of vector $\vec{a}=3 \hat{i}+2 \hat{j}-5 \hat{k}$ on $\vec{b}=-2 \hat{i}+2 \hat{j}+\hat{k}$ has length

    Projection vector of $\vec{a}$ on $\vec{b}$ is

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    The length of the perpendicular drawn from the point (4, – 7, 3) on the y-axis is

    If the components of $\vec{a}=\alpha \hat{i}+\beta \hat{j}+\gamma \hat{k}$ along and perpendicular to $\overrightarrow{\mathrm{b}}=3 \hat{\mathrm{i}}+\hat{\mathrm{j}}-\hat{\mathrm{k}}$ respectively, are $\frac{16}{11}(3 \hat{\mathrm{i}}+\hat{\mathrm{j}}-\hat{\mathrm{k}})$ and $\frac{1}{11}(-4 \hat{\mathrm{i}}-5 \hat{\mathrm{j}}-17 \hat{\mathrm{k}})$, then $\alpha^2+\beta^2+\gamma^2$ is equal to:

    Concepts Covered - 1

    Finding Components of a vector Along and Perpendicular to another Vector

    Let $\vec{a}$ and $\vec{b}$ be two vectors represented by $\overrightarrow{O A}$ and $\overrightarrow{O B}$ respectively and let $\Theta$ be the angle between $\vec{a}$ and $\vec{b}$. Then,
    $
    \vec{b}=\overrightarrow{O M}+\overrightarrow{M B}
    $

    $
    \vec{b}=\overrightarrow{O M}+\overrightarrow{M B}
    $

    Also,
    $
    \begin{aligned}
    \overrightarrow{O M} & =(O M) \hat{a} \\
    & =(O B \cos \theta) \hat{a}==(|\vec{b}| \cos \theta) \hat{a} \\
    & =\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}|}\right) \hat{a}=\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}||\vec{a}|}\right) \vec{a} \quad\left[\because \hat{a}=\frac{\vec{a}}{|\vec{a}|}\right] \\
    & =\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}|^2}\right) \vec{a}
    \end{aligned}
    $

    As,
    $
    \begin{aligned}
    \vec{b} & =\overrightarrow{O M}+\overrightarrow{M B} \\
    \overrightarrow{M B} & =\vec{b}-\overrightarrow{O M}=\vec{b}-\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}|^2}\right) \vec{a}
    \end{aligned}
    $

    Thus, the components of $\vec{b}$ along and perpendicular to $\vec{a}$ are $\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}|^2}\right) \vec{a}$ and $\vec{b}-\left(\frac{(\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b})}{|\vec{a}|^2}\right) \vec{a}$, respectively.

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    Finding Components of a vector Along and Perpendicular to another Vector

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