PHYS 2108 Study Guide - Final Guide: Angular Acceleration, Burma Plate, Radian
Document Summary
The most basic field of study in physics is kinematics: position, velocity and acceleration. It"s the first topic and contains the most basic (and often used) equations in physics. Kinematics doesn"t always have to happen in a straight line. Rather than travelling across some distance x, it"s possible to consider spinning through some rotational distance. we usually choose to represent the angular displacement as the greek letter theta, . We have a special unit of measure for angles that you may have seen in your calculator called radians. Radians are a more natural unit in the universe than degrees because radians are the result of ratios. Because of that they"re one of the very few units that you can stick in when you need them or remove when you don"t. If you lay a string as long as a circle"s radius along the edge of the circle, the angle it sweeps out is equal to one radian.
