the.com/vector
the arrow that knows where it's going and exactly how hard it's pushing.
means A quantity that has both a magnitude and a direction — or, in biology and computing, the thing that carries something (a disease, a gene, a payload) from one place to another.
from From Latin vector, "a carrier, conveyer, one who bears," from vehere, "to carry or convey" — the same root that rolls underneath vehicle. So the word literally means "the one that carries," which is why a mosquito (carrying disease) and an arrow (carrying direction and force) earn the same name. Mathematics borrowed it in the 19th century for quantities pointing somewhere with a definite push; biology took the carrier sense more literally.
- magnitude plus direction
- Quantity with attitude, not just a number.
- disease carrier
- Mosquitoes are vectors, ferrying malaria between hosts.
- physics workhorse
- Velocity, force, and momentum are all vectors.
- infinite resolution
- Vector graphics scale forever without going blurry.
- latin root
- From vehere, meaning to carry or convey.
mosquito malaria transmission — anopheles mosquitoes transmit malaria parasites to 627,000 people annually in africa alone
tick lyme disease spread — ixodes scapularis ticks transmit borrelia burgdorferi causing 476,000 cases of lyme disease in us since 1991
aedes aegypti dengue virus — aedes mosquitoes transmit dengue to 390 million people per year globally