What is binding energy and separation energy

the binding energy is the energy required to create z separate protons and n=a-z separate neutrons from a (a,z) nucleus in its ground state. another way to think about it is binding energy is the mass energy which is missing from a nucleus compared to the mass energy of the individual nucleons.

see the picture for the vector

the magnitude of the vector by pythagorean theorem

r = √( (-10)^2 + (3)^2 ) = √109

magnitude = √109 units

the direction angle between vector and x-axis is

tan^(-1)(3/10) = 16.699

so the direction is approximately 16.7 degrees north of west