PHYSICS G10 SEM I

Kinematics

The study of motion without going into its causes

Motion

The change in position with respect to the time

Uniform motion

Refers to an object moving at a steady speed along a straight line

Displacement

The change in position

Distance

The length of a path followed by a particle

Average speed

The ratio between the total distance to the total time

Average velocity

The ratio of the displacement divided by the total time

Instantaneous speed

The speed at a given instant in time

Instantaneous velocity

The velocity at a given instant in time

Acceleration

The rate of change of velocity

Average acceleration

The change in velocity per unit time

Graph

A useful way of showing how something has moved

Distance-time graph

A graph of distance varying in terms of time travelled

Displacement-time graph

A graph of displacement in terms of time

Velocity

Gradient of a displacement-time graph

Speed

Gradient of a distance-time graph

Velocity-time graph

A graph that shows how an object’s velocity has changed as it travels along the displacement

Acceleration

Gradient of a velocity-time graph

Displacement

Area under a velocity-time graph

Free fall

A kind of motion where the acceleration of the object is just due to the acceleration due to gravity