Study notes

Kinematics

How to describe motion precisely with speed, velocity and acceleration, and how to read displacement-time and velocity-time graphs to find those quantities and the distance travelled.

What this topic covers

  • Speed is a number, velocity is a number with a direction
  • Displacement is a directed distance from a fixed start point
  • Average speed uses total distance and total time
  • Uniform acceleration is a steady change in velocity
  • A displacement-time graph's gradient is velocity
  • A velocity-time graph's gradient is acceleration
  • The area under a velocity-time graph is displacement
  • Free fall near Earth has a roughly constant acceleration

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