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Any quantity having magnitude and direction is known as a vector. Some examples of vectors are velocity, force, acceleration, momentum, etc.

The operation of adding two or more vectors is called vector addition. There are two types of vector addition: parallelogram law of vector addition and triangular law of vector addition.

${\stackrel{→}{V}}_1$and ${\stackrel{→}{V}}_2$are the two vectors having magnitudes $V_1$and $V_2$, respectively. The magnitude of vector $\stackrel{→}{V}$is V.

It is given that $\stackrel{→}{V}={\stackrel{→}{V}}_1+{\stackrel{→}{V}}_2$. The magnitude of the sum of the two vectors, V, is not necessarily greater than the individual magnitudes $V_1$and $V_2$.

For instance, if ${\stackrel{→}{V}}_1$and ${\stackrel{→}{V}}_2$have the same magnitude but are opposite in direction, then $V=0$. Say, ${\stackrel{→}{V}}_1$is a 6 m vector pointing toward the north and ${\stackrel{→}{V}}_2$is a 4 m vector pointing toward the south direction, then their sum has a length of 2 m, and is less than either of the two individual vectors.