What do you suppose is the length of the vector represented by:
(3, 0)T
It seems plausible that the length is 3 units.
When a 2D vector is aligned with the x axis, the column matrix that represents it has a non-zero value in the first element, and zero for the second element.
The green vector is represented by: (3, 0)T. It is easy to determine its length — the length is the value of the single non-zero element.
Vector a (the blue vector in the diagram) is aligned with the y axis. Its matrix is (0, 4)T.
What is the length of a?