What is a phasor

azolotor

Could someone please give me an explanation of what we mean we say phasor please. We went over phasors in class today and I understood all the manipulations we were doing for superposition but my professor mentioned phasors and never said what they were. I have looked up several definitions but it isn't gelling for me. Thanks in advance!

Andrew Mason

Was he talking about Star Trek or electricity?

Phasors are vectors drawn in a circle to represent the phase differences of alternating current or voltages so that values can be calculated.

AM

NascentOxygen

A phasor is a rotating vector. In 99.9% of your course of study you can neglect the fact that they rotate; just manipulate them like ordinary vectors. They rotate because a sinewave can be represented by the projection of a rotating vector onto a chosen axis.

azolotor

Thanks so much! Much clearer now.