Essay Example about Kinematics

Kinematics is the branch of physics that studies motion in a straight line. There are two types of ways to describe force or movement, the first way is a vector which is force or motion which is written with magnitude and a direction and the second is, scalar which is force described with only magnitude. Displacement is a scalar quantity and distance is a vector quantity therefore speed is a scalar quantity and velocity is a vector quantity. There are four main aspects to motion in a straight-line position(x), time(t), velocity(v) and acceleration(a). The position is where something is, time is how long something takes, velocity changes in position over time and acceleration is a change of velocity over time. Firstly, to find the distance or displacement you must subtract the initial position(xi) from the final position(xf), the next step is to find the time, to find the total time you must subtract the initial(ti) time from the final time(tf). After the total displacement/distance and total time are found you must use the average velocity equation to find the velocity Δx/Δ_t  which is the same as d/t  where do is displacement or distance depending on if the direction is given in the equation or problem there is a hypothetical car going down a 20m road the car starts at the beginning of the road and goes all the way to the end it takes the car 5s to get to the end of the road what is the velocity of the car. The solution to this problem is very simple, firstly the values need to be plugged in if the total distance(d) is calculated d would be equal to 20m and if the total time was calculated the time would be equal to 5s and finally using the velocity equation we find that 20m/5s   = 4m/s therefore the velocity of the car is 4m/s. The instantaneous velocity of an object is the limit of the average velocity as the elapsed time approaches 0 or the derivative of x with respect to time the formula.