Physics 1401A/B Lecture 1: Motion
Document Summary
Kinematics: study of motion without considering the forces that produce the motion. Scalar: quantities that have only a magnitude (numerical value) Vector: quantities that have both a magnitude and direction. Position : straight-line distance & direction of an object from a reference point. Displacement ( ): change in position of an object. Tell us how far an object moves, not how fast it moved. Velocity tells you how fast an object is moving. Scalar quantity; it does not have a direction. The average velocity is the slope of the line segment that connects the positions at the beginning and end of the time interval called the secant. Average speed ( ) total distance travelled divided by the total time to travel that distance. Average velocity ( ): the change in position divided by the time interval. Instantaneous speed ( ): the speed of an object at a particular instant. Magnitude of (slope of the tangent to a position time graph)