Addition in quadrature

Imagine you have two teddy bears - one red bear and one blue bear. Now, let's say the red bear is 3 feet tall and the blue bear is 4 feet tall.

If we wanted to add their heights together, we would just say they are 7 feet tall in total. But sometimes, we don't just want to add the numbers together. Sometimes, we want to add them in a special way called "addition in quadrature."

This is what it means: first, we square each number (which just means we multiply it by itself). So, 3 squared is 9 and 4 squared is 16.

Next, we add the squared numbers together - 9 + 16 = 25.

Finally, we take the square root of that sum (which means we find the number that, when squared, gives us the sum). So, the square root of 25 is 5.

So, using addition in quadrature, we found out that if we add the heights of the red and blue bears, they are actually 5 feet tall - not 7 like we thought before.

This might seem like a silly way to add numbers, but it's actually really useful in math and science. When we're solving problems that involve things like distances or forces, we often need to add them in quadrature to get the right answer.