Speed definition physics how to#

Uniform motion graph (source self-made MS paint)Īn object is said to be in non-uniform motion when there is an acceleration on the body that is the speed not always remains the same throughout the motion, it may increase or decrease accordingly.

When considering the graph it will be a straight line with constant slope, that is if we take the slope of the graph between any two points on the graph, it will remain the same always.(we have seen what the slope in a distance vs time graph indicates, it indicates the speed) In Non-uniform motion distance travelled by an object is not constantly measured in the same intervals of time. Uniform speed indicates a case of motion of an object where rate of change of position to time is a constant throughout motion, in which the object covers equal distance in equal interval of time. There is a usual convention that when talking about the velocity in physics, its magnitude part alone is usually called as speed as it is the part without direction but it may not conceptually agree because speed is a measure of total distance covered by the body and velocity is the shortest distance covered by the body, we know that distance may not be always equal to the displacement. Consider a graph plotting distance of a body vs time then instantaneous speed is the derivative at any instant of time. It is the measure of speed of a body at any instant of time, or measuring the rate of change of position with respect to an infinitesimally small time period.

NCERT Exemplar Class 11 Physics Solutions Chapter 3 Motion in a straight line.

NCERT solutions for Class 11 Physics Chapter 3 Motion in a straight line.

NCERT notes Class 11 Physics Chapter 3 Motion in a straight line.

Here speed is measured in km/hr for the better convenience For example, consider a body that covers a total of 200 km in varying speeds accelerating and decelerating at various rates in 5 hours which is what really happens in a road, there we make use of the term called the average speed which is the total distance covered in total time. When plotting a curve of distance covered by a body vs time, the slope of the graph gives the speed, different types of speed are normally instantaneous speed or average speed, speed formula isĪ body is said to be in unit speed if it covers 1 meter distance in 1 second and its formula is called unit speed formulaĪverage speed can be defined as the total distance covered divided by the total time taken.

Difference Between Distance and Displacement.

Speed definition physics how to#

We will see how to measure speed on the following sections The SI unit of speed or speed is measured in meters per second (m/s) but speed measurement in daily life is done in Kilometer per hour (Km/s) or miles per hour (mph) is used. If they are able to maintain the measurement of speed constant through a journey of half an hour then body A has covered a distance of 10kms whereas Body B has covered only a distance of 5kms. suppose body A has a speed of 20 Km/hr and body B has 10km/hr. Speed meaning in physics is defined as how much distance a body covers in unit interval of time, if it is said that a body A has a higher measurement of speed than a body B then it indicates that the body A covers more distance than the body B in the same interval of time. That is the velocity has two parts one indicating a measure or the magnitude and the other indicating the direction of the velocity, it is not necessary that both these magnitude and direction components of velocity should remain the same always, change in any of these with respect to the time is called as the acceleration of the body. Measurement of speed is the rate of change of distance to time whereas the velocity of a body indicates the rate of change of displacement to time. What is the Measurement of speed and velocity? In the case of displacement, magnitude and direction is important as it is vector quantity. The distance can only be a positive value or it has to be zero whereas the displacement of a body can be positive negative or zero. The term displacement is a vector quantity and the displacement of a body is used to calculate the velocity of the body which is the rate of change of displacement with respect to time. Whereas the term displacement indicates the shortest route between the initial and the final positions of the body. Measurement of speed in the computer is measured in terms of Kilobyte per second (KBps) Distance and displacementĭistance refers to the measure of the entire route travelled by an object and it is a scalar quantity, distance is the measurement that is used to measure the speed of an object.