Acceleration
Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. Big deal! Who cares! You should. especially if you are experiencing a very large acceleration or deceleration personally! If something is accelerating, then a resultant force is involved. The bigger your acceleration, the larger that force is. It's all fine saying this, but what does "rate of change of acceleration" mean? How can we calculate the acceleration of an object and how this will affect it's motion? Luckily, you have come to the right place to find out. We'll also cover velocity- time graphs in this section. If you are feeling confident that you already know this stuff, then why not skip straight ahead to our quiz and find out if your confidence is justified.
Sure that you already know this stuff? Know how to use the equation and how to get information from velocity-time graphs? Then why not head to the quiz straight away?
FIVE FACTS ON ACCELERATION
Brains remembering things in groups of five? Odd numbers of facts get learnt easier? Outrageous! Or maybe not... apparently it works...here is what you need to know about acceleration. Below that you will find some worked examples of acceleration calculations. Fun? You bet!
VELOCITY - TIME GRAPHS
Sometimes we forget we are making a science video. Especially "back in the day" when we were all young and impulsive. Apologies. If you aren't interested in people robbing local post offices and retro east German cars, you might want to skip to 3 minutes in where one of the characters actually starts to talk about science and speed - time graphs.... classic "cringe" as the youth would say... #downwivthekids
VELOCITY - TIME GRAPHS SUMMARISED!
Here is all the information that you can get off a velocity time graph in our handy animated diagram. Remember:
The gradient of a velocity time graph gives us the object acceleration.
The area under the graph gives us the displacement (or distance) travelled.
ACCELERATION AND VELOCITY TIME GRAPH QUIZ
It's quiz time science geeks! Test those brain cells with this weird and wonderful quiz designed to test all your knowledge about this increasingly speedy topic. Can you get full marks? Essential key skills for the modern physicist.
