How do speed and velocity differ

These terms are used to quantify various things, and they all have associated formulas. The displacement of an object per unit time is called average velocity. Average velocity is a vector and is along the direction of displacement. A train named Godavari express starts at 5. Let the distance of the entire trip from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad be km. The Journey time is 12 h. What is the distance covered by the train in each hour?

Obviously, the answer is NO, because there may be some variations in distance covered by the train each hour. Speed: According to Galileo, speed is defined as the distance covered per unit time. For example, a man moving by car will cover a large distance as compared to a man moving by bicycle in the same time period. This is because a car can travel with more speed as compared to the bicycle. Speed is the magnitude part of the velocity in kinematics, thus it is a scalar quantity.

Its SI unit is meter per second. Instantaneous Speed: Instantaneous speed is the speed at any instant. For example, instantaneous speed can be seen on the speedometer of any vehicle. In mathematical terms, it is defined as the magnitude of the instantaneous velocity that is the derivative of the position concerning time.

Average Speed: It is different from the instantaneous speed; average speed is the total distance travelled in a particular interval of time. In other words, the total covered distance divided by the total time interval is the average speed of the body. Rotational Speed: It is rotating speed. In other words, the rotational speed is the number of turns made by a body in unit time. Tangential Speed: It is defined as the linear speed of a body travelling along a circular path.

Thus, tangential speed will be directly proportional to r when all parts of a system. Relative Speed: It is clear from its name that the speed of any body is relative to any other body that the speed a body can be seen with reference to another body. There are Two Types of Speed:. Uniform Speed: When the distance travelled by a body is equal in equal interval of time then the speed is uniform.

Non-uniform Speed: When the distance travelled by a body is unequal in an equal interval of time then the speed is known as non- uniform speed. Velocity: Velocity is a physical vector quantity. It has a magnitude as well as direction. In calculus, velocity is the first derivative of the position with respect to time. Velocity, in other words, is the rate of change in the position of the body with reference to time. Initial and Final Velocity: Initial velocity describes the speed of an object when the force was applied initially on the body.

The final velocity is the measurement of speed and direction of a dynamic body when it reaches its maximum acceleration. Relative Velocity: It is fundamental in both classical and physical physics. Relative velocity is a measurement of velocity between two objects as determined in a single coordinate system. Types of Velocity:. Constant Velocity: A velocity which does not change with the direction and speed and moves along a straight line is called as constant velocity.

Changing Velocity: A velocity which changes with the speed and direction or changes either speed or direction is called changing velocity. This is also called as acceleration. Instant Instantaneous Velocity: When at a particular time, speed and direction changes, then that phenomenon is called instantaneous velocity. When evaluating the velocity of an object, one must keep track of direction.

One must include direction information in order to fully describe the velocity of the object. This is one of the essential differences between speed and velocity. Speed is a scalar quantity and does not keep track of direction ; velocity is a vector quantity and is direction aware. The task of describing the direction of the velocity vector is easy. The direction of the velocity vector is simply the same as the direction that an object is moving. It would not matter whether the object is speeding up or slowing down.

If an object is moving rightwards, then its velocity is described as being rightwards. If an object is moving downwards, then its velocity is described as being downwards.

Note that speed has no direction it is a scalar and the velocity at any instant is simply the speed value with a direction. Let's begin implementing our understanding of these formulas with the following problem:.

Q: While on vacation, Lisa Carr traveled a total distance of miles. Her trip took 8 hours. What was her average speed? That was easy! Lisa Carr averaged a speed of 55 miles per hour. Yet, she averaged a speed of 55 miles per hour.

The above formula represents a shortcut method of determining the average speed of an object. Since a moving object often changes its speed during its motion, it is common to distinguish between the average speed and the instantaneous speed. The distinction is as follows. You might think of the instantaneous speed as the speed that the speedometer reads at any given instant in time and the average speed as the average of all the speedometer readings during the course of the trip.

Moving objects don't always travel with erratic and changing speeds. Occasionally, an object will move at a steady rate with a constant speed. That is, the object will cover the same distance every regular interval of time. If her speed is constant, then the distance traveled every second is the same. The runner would cover a distance of 6 meters every second.