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- College physics for ap® courses
- Kinematics
- Time, velocity, and speed
Section summary
- Time is measured in terms of change, and its SI unit is the second (s). Elapsed time for an event is
where
is the final time and
is the initial time. The initial time is often taken to be zero, as if measured with a stopwatch; the elapsed time is then just
.
- Average velocity
is defined as displacement divided by the travel time. In symbols, average velocity is
- The SI unit for velocity is m/s.
- Velocity is a vector and thus has a direction.
- Instantaneous velocity
is the velocity at a specific instant or the average velocity for an infinitesimal interval.
- Instantaneous speed is the magnitude of the instantaneous velocity.
- Instantaneous speed is a scalar quantity, as it has no direction specified.
- Average speed is the total distance traveled divided by the elapsed time. (Average speed is
not the magnitude of the average velocity.) Speed is a scalar quantity; it has no direction associated with it.
Conceptual questions
There is a distinction between average speed and the magnitude of average velocity. Give an example that illustrates the difference between these two quantities.
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If you divide the total distance traveled on a car trip (as determined by the odometer) by the time for the trip, are you calculating the average speed or the magnitude of the average velocity? Under what circumstances are these two quantities the same?
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Problems&Exercises
(a) Calculate Earth's average speed relative to the Sun. (b) What is its average velocity over a period of one year?
(a)
(b) 0 m/s
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A helicopter blade spins at exactly 100 revolutions per minute. Its tip is 5.00 m from the center of rotation. (a) Calculate the average speed of the blade tip in the helicopter's frame of reference. (b) What is its average velocity over one revolution?
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The North American and European continents are moving apart at a rate of about 3 cm/y. At this rate how long will it take them to drift 500 km farther apart than they are at present?
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Land west of the San Andreas fault in southern California is moving at an average velocity of about 6 cm/y northwest relative to land east of the fault. Los Angeles is west of the fault and may thus someday be at the same latitude as San Francisco, which is east of the fault. How far in the future will this occur if the displacement to be made is 590 km northwest, assuming the motion remains constant?
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On May 26, 1934, a streamlined, stainless steel diesel train called the Zephyr set the world's nonstop long-distance speed record for trains. Its run from Denver to Chicago took 13 hours, 4 minutes, 58 seconds, and was witnessed by more than a million people along the route. The total distance traveled was 1633.8 km. What was its average speed in km/h and m/s?
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Source:
OpenStax, College physics for ap® courses. OpenStax CNX. Nov 04, 2016 Download for free at https://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11844/1.14
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