A sketch of the two ways in which movement can be quantified. The movement is indicated by the yellow ball and shown in time steps of 0.2 seconds. It indicates steady movement towards α = 68.2° east of north. (Note that direction is expressed in degrees from North and clockwise.) After one second the ball has moved the distance s = 1.077 m. This movement can therefore be described by the two numbers
An alternative way of describing the movement is to give its components along the two axes of the co-ordinate system (shown by the red arrows). The east component is then given by s.sinα, the north component by s.cosα. In this example the two components are
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