Question

Pick out the only vector quantity in the following list:
Temperature, pressure, impulse, time, power, total path length, energy, gravitational potential, coefficient of friction, charge.

Answer 1

We are given a list of physical quantities used very frequently in our day-to-day life. We can study each of them to understand whether they have both magnitude and direction to be a vector physical quantity or scalar physical quantity.

Complete answer:
We know that vector quantities are those physical quantities which possess both the magnitude and direction. The scalar quantities are those which possess only magnitude. We can understand the type of physical quantity by studying the given physical quantity.
Temperature: It is the measurement of hotness of a body. It is just a point or value and doesn’t have a direction. i.e., it is a scalar quantity.
Pressure: It is the force acting on a unit area of a surface. Even though the force is a vector, the pressure spreads across the area and therefore, is a scalar quantity.
Impulse: It is defined as the force acting on a body for an interval of time. It is the integral of force over the time interval. It gives the direction of linear momentum on the body, i.e., it is a vector quantity.
Time: It is the measure of how long or an instant. It is a scalar quantity.
Power: It is the energy consumed per unit time. It is also a scalar quantity.
Total path length: It is the total distance travelled by a body. It is a scalar quantity.
Energy: It is the amount of work done without any direction sense. It is a scalar quantity.
Gravitational Potential: It is the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its height, independent of the path taken. It is a scalar quantity.
Coefficient of friction: It is the constant of proportionality that relates the frictional force and the normal force of a body. It is a scalar quantity.
Charge: It is the property of a particle to experience force in an external field. It is a scalar quantity.
So, we get the only vector quantity in the list as the impulse.

Note:
Most of the physical quantities have a vector quantity analogous to their scalar quantities. We should understand how to use them in situations properly to get favourable results during an experiment, as in the case of distance and displacement in motion.