Component

A force may always be represented diagrammatically by a straight line, terminating in an arrow-head to indicate the direction, and of length to represent the intensity of the force. The line may always be a umed to represent the diagonal of a parallelogram, two of whose sides are represented by lines starting from the base of the arrow, and of length fixed by the condition that the original force shall be the diagonal of the parallelogram of which they are two contiguous sides; such lines are called components, and actually represent forces into which the original force may always be resolved. The components can have any direction. Thus the vertical component of a horizontal force is zero; its horizontal component is equal to itself. Its 450 component is equal to the square root of one-half of its square.