Position
Category : JEE Main & Advanced
Any object is situated at point O and three observers from three different places are looking at same object, then all three observers will have different observations about the position of point O and no one will be wrong. Because they are observing the object from different positions.
Observer 'A' says : Point O is 3 m away in west direction.
Observer 'B' says : Point O is 4 m away in south direction.
Observer 'C' says : Point O is 5 m away in east direction.
Therefore position of any point is completely expressed by two factors: Its distance from the observer and its direction with respect to observer.
That is why position is characterised by a vector known as position vector.
Consider a point P in xy plane and its coordinates are (x, y). Then position vector \[(\vec{r})\] of point will be \[x\hat{i}+y\hat{j}\] and if the point P is in space and its coordinates are (x, y, z) then position vector can be expressed as \[\vec{r}=x\hat{i}+y\hat{j}+z\hat{k}.\]
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