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II.

Motion
Two branches of Newtonian mechanics1:
Kinematics: describes motion without consideration of the causes of motion.
Dynamics: concerned with the study of forces and torques2 and their effect on motion.
Definition of Concepts Related to the Study of Motion:
Time: Physicists define time as simply a measure of change. If nothing changes then it
is impossible to measure time.
Displacement: Displacement is the shortest distance from the initial to the final position
of a point. It is the length of an imaginary straight path, typically distinct from the path
actually travelled. Displacement, unlike distance, is a vector3.
Velocity: Velocity is the change in displacement divided by the change in time. Velocity
is a vector and thus has magnitude4 and direction.
The average velocity (V) is equal to a change in displacement5 divided by change in
time:

or, for convenience, we will use


displacement):

(change in distance) instead of

(change in

Equation 2.1

And whenever there is change, there is always a difference:

Newtonian mechanics is also known also known as classical mechanics, a field in physics concerned
with the laws of motion.
2
Forces and torques (forces that cause a rotation) are the main causes of motion. Therefore, dynamics is
mostly concerned with these two.
3
A scalar is a quantity that has magnitude but no direction. A vector is a quantity that has both magnitude
and direction.
4
The absolute value of the magnitude of velocity is called the speed, which is a scalar.
5
Remember, displacement is a vector.

Therefore,

Consider for example a car which travelled 6.0 km in 15 min. What is the average
velocity of this car?
Solution. Using your equation 2.1:

Converting that to your standard SI unit for speed ( ) would yield:


(

)(

The average velocity V of the car is 6.7 .


Acceleration: Acceleration is the change in velocity divided by the change in time.
Because velocity is a vector, acceleration is also a vector.
The average acceleration is defined by:
Equation 2.2

We have mentioned that whenever there is change, there is always a difference in the
initial and the final values:

Therefore,

Consider for example a car, starting from rest (0

) and accelerated to 90

in the first

15 seconds to the East. What is the acceleration of this car?


Solution.

Converting that to the standard SI unit for acceleration ( ) yields:


(

)(

MOTION EQUATIONS AND PROBLEM SOLVING


It is possible to solve problems by deriving equations from your common sense,
intuition, and a little bit of algebraic manipulation.
We know that
Equation 2.3

And if we assume that

and

, then

and

Let these be your


Equation 2.4

Now using your equation 2.1 and assuming 2.4, we can deduce that the average
velocity is simply displacement6 over time:

Now manipulate the resulting equation

Equation 2.4.a

The average velocity is given by


Equation 2.4.b

Remember we treat
(change in distance) as
(change in displacement). This is technically incorrect because
distance is a scalar while displacement is a vector. However, we mentioned that we replaced the symbols for
convenience

Replace the

in equation 2.4.a with the value of

in 2.4.b (that is,

), we derive

Equation 2.5
(

Consider for example a car running at

and covered a distance of 1500.0

meters. How much time will it take for the car to travel this distance at that velocity
(assuming velocity is constant, i. e. zero acceleration).
Solution. By manipulating equation 2.5 we deduce that
(

Plugging in the numbers,


(

We can also combine equations 2.2 and 2.3 (assuming equation 2.4 is the case):

and now assuming

( )

Or rearranging that, we obtain


Equation 2.6

Equation 2.6 is useful in cases where you want to know the final velocity of an object
but you dont know the distance traveled but you have knowledge of its initial velocity,
acceleration and the time it takes for that acceleration to happen.
Consider for example a runner from rest (

) accelerating to

for the first 0.75

seconds. What is the final velocity of this runner?


Solution. Use equation 2.6:

)(

)(

Suppose for example that the same runner began decelerating to

we can calculate

the time it takes for this runner to stop. This can be done by algebraically manipulating
equation 2.6:

The final velocity is


acceleration is

since at that point the runner would have stopped. The


since the runner is decelerating (accelerating in the opposite

direction7) Then using the equation,

We can also combine equations 2.5 and 2.6 to obtain another equation. Equation 2.5 is
(

We can use equation 2.6

to replace the

in equation 2.5 with

:
(

(Note: this is to eliminate the final velocity in the equation so that even if you dont
know the final velocity you can still solve other problems.)
(

(
(

Remember, acceleration is a vector!

)
)

Equation 2.7

Consider for the previous example. The runner has an initial velocity of
decelerated to

and

within 3 seconds. What is the distance covered by this runner after 3

seconds?
Solution. Note that the acceleration is

because deceleration is acceleration in the

opposite direction:

)(

(
(

)
)

)(

)(

)
)

We can also combine equations 2.5 and 2.6 to obtain another equation that will
eliminate time instead of velocity. Equation 2.5 is
(
We can use equation 2.6

and rearrange that to obtain

Now replace the in equation 2.5 with

:
(

)(

Equation 2.8

Equation 2.8 is useful in finding velocities if we dont know the time but know the initial
velocity, the displacement covered, and the acceleration.
Consider for example a car accelerating from rest to

and covered a distance of

400 meters (assuming the acceleration is constant). What is the velocity of this car?
Solution. Use equation 2.8:

)(

)(

Summary of Motion Equations:

Equation 1:
Equation 2:
Equation 5:
(

(assuming

and

as in equations 3 and 4) and

) (when there are two velocities)

Equation 6:
Equation 7:
Equation 8:
(Note: s is displacement which is simply distance with direction in accordance to the
Cartesian coordinate)

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