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wakejosh
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ok, so since velocity has two parts, speed and direction, and since acceleration is defined as a change in velocity, can acceleration be either a change in speed or a change in direction?
wakejosh said:ok, so since velocity has two parts, speed and direction, and since acceleration is defined as a change in velocity, can acceleration be either a change in speed or a change in direction?
Velocity is a measure of the rate of change of an object's position with respect to time. It is a vector quantity, meaning it has both magnitude (speed) and direction. In simple terms, it describes how fast and in what direction an object is moving.
Velocity and speed are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. While speed only tells us how fast an object is moving, velocity also includes the direction of motion. For example, a car traveling at 60 miles per hour east has a different velocity than a car traveling at 60 miles per hour west.
The formula for velocity is velocity = displacement / time, where displacement is the change in an object's position and time is the duration it took for that change to occur. Another way to write this formula is v = Δx / Δt, where Δ (delta) represents change.
Velocity can be measured using a variety of instruments, such as speedometers, radar guns, and motion sensors. The most common way to measure velocity is to use a stopwatch or timer to record the time it takes for an object to travel a known distance. The velocity can then be calculated using the formula mentioned in question 3.
The SI unit for velocity is meters per second (m/s). However, other units such as kilometers per hour (km/h) and miles per hour (mph) are also commonly used. It is important to note that the units for velocity depend on the units used for displacement and time in the formula. For example, if displacement is measured in feet and time in seconds, the resulting velocity will be in feet per second (ft/s).