Motion Vocabulary
What is distance?
Length an object has traveled
Does your car's speedometer measure instantaneous or average speed?
What is instantaneous speed?
What is displacement?
distance from starting point to ending point
A tennis player serves the ball and runs 24 feet towards the net to hit the ball. They return to the serving position.
What is the total distance?
What is the total displacement?
Distance: 48 m
Displacement: 0 m
A runner completes a 400 m lap around a track in 120 seconds. What is their speed?
3.33 m/s
If the motion of a car is a straight line going up on the distance-time graph, what does this tell you?
Constant speed away from start
What is speed?
Distance traveled per time
A basketball runs 42 feet North on the basketball court. The ball is turned over and the player runs 67 feet South.
Distance: 109 feet
Displacement: 25 m South
If the motion of a car is a straight line going down on the distance-time graph, what does this tell you?
Constant speed going towards start
What is velocity?
A car moves 20 meters east, then 10 meters north, and then 20 meters west.
What is the total distance?
What is the total displacement?
Distance: 50 m
Displacement: 0 meters N
Tom was planning a trip 2000 miles across the country. If he took a plane, he would travel 550 mi/hr. If he drove a car, he would travel 75 mi/hr.
How long would it take him to travel by plane?
How long would it take him to travel by car?
Plane: 3.63 hrs
Car: 7.33 hrs
What is the difference between instantaneous and average speed?
Instantaneous: speed at given instant
Average: total distance divided by total time
A race track driver drove two times around the track (2000m).
What is the total distance?
What is the displacement?
Distance: 4000 m
Displacement: 0 m
Calculate the speed of the highlighted part of the distance time graph.
8.33 m/s