- #1
KellyOsbourne
- 3
- 0
I was told by my teacher that the definition for distance is just "the amount of ground covered", and that displacement is "the distance in a particular direction". I was looking at some distance-time graphs online and I saw that towards the later stage of the journey in some of the graphs, the gradient of the distance-time graph was negative. Their explanation for the negative gradient was that the object was moving towards the starting position. I do not understand that. Even if the object is moving towards the starting position, it is still covering "ground" and it would go up, right? And the gradient of a distance-time graph is the speed, and I didn't think there was anything called negative speed. I know about negative velocity, but negative speed? Please clear this for me! I want to know how the gradient of a distance-time graph can be negative, when distance is just the "ground" covered.
This could be a very stupid question :$ But I am sometimes very blind to the obvious. Please help! :)
Thank you a lot in advance!
This could be a very stupid question :$ But I am sometimes very blind to the obvious. Please help! :)
Thank you a lot in advance!