Tugboats Pulling Ship

The model illustrates a ship being towed by two smaller towboats, each moving in slightly different directions relative to the ship. When two or more forces act on an object, they combine to produce a resultant effect, represented by the resultant force. If this resultant force is non-zero, the forces are said to be unbalanced and will produce a noticeable effect on the object. The direction of the resultant force is determined by the direction of the individual forces and their combined effect. Forces are vectors, meaning they have both magnitude and direction. There are several methods to determine the magnitude and direction of the resultant when adding vectors. One common method is to visualize the addition of two vectors as two successive arrows, with the vector sum being the vector distance from the starting point to the endpoint. To graphically represent vectors, arrows are drawn to scale. The starting point of vector 2 is placed at the endpoint of vector 1, and the vector sum (F) is the arrow drawn from the beginning of the first vector to the endpoint of the second. Another way to find the resultant force is by constructing a parallelogram with the initial force vectors as two adjacent sides. The diagonal of the parallelogram represents the resultant force vector.