Download pendulumprojection.mw

Most of the time in multivariable calculus the vectors we are decomposing with respect to a given direction are attached to a specific point and this "orthogonal decomposition" should be visualized as a triplet of vectors with initial point at that given point such that the two projections sum to the original vector. Keep in mind our high school physics pendulum example where we need to evaluate both the component of the downward gravitational force along the tangential direction of motion of the pendulum for the equations of motion as well as along the perpendicular direction to the motion to evaluate the tension in the string or wire holding the pendulum mass.

We create an Explorable graphic to visualize this idea and then create an animation which requires a bit of Maple expert user knowledge to accomplish (thanks Maplesoft!). A delayed evaluation of the arrow command from the plot package is required in order to animate that arrow so that it waits for the animation command to feed it actual numerical values for the vector to be plotted.

My worksheet URL:
http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/courses/mat2500/handouts/pendulumprojection.mw