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Learn what acceleration is and how to calculate it using different formulas. See solved examples of acceleration problems involving initial and final velocity, time and distance.
- Diagonal Formula
Diagonal Formula is used to calculate the polygon diagonals....
- Cone Formula
Cone Formula Cone is a three-dimensional structure having a...
- Acceleration
Acceleration. An object is said to be accelerated if there...
- Diagonal Formula
Learn what is acceleration, how to calculate it using different formulas, and what are its units and types. See examples of acceleration in motion, velocity-time graph, and difference between acceleration and velocity.
- 1 min
- When an object is moving in a circle and its acceleration vector is pointed towards the centre of that circle, it is known as centripetal accelerat...
- Gravitational acceleration is used for indicating the intensity of the gravitational field. It is expressed as m/s2 and its value on the surface of...
- Tangential acceleration is defined as the rate of change of the tangential velocity of a particle in a circular orbit. There are 3 possible values...
- When there is an acceleration of an object along the radius directed towards the centre, it is known as radial acceleration. It is expressed as rad...
- The acceleration due to the rotation of the earth is known as the Coriolis acceleration. This acceleration is experienced by the particles that mov...
Learn what acceleration is and how to calculate it using two formulas: one based on force and mass, and one based on change in velocity and time. See examples of acceleration problems and solutions with diagrams and explanations.
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- Overview
- What does acceleration mean?
- What's the formula for acceleration?
- What's confusing about acceleration?
- Example 1:
- Example 2:
Velocity describes how position changes; acceleration describes how velocity changes. Two layers of change!
What does acceleration mean?
Compared to displacement and velocity, acceleration is like the angry, fire-breathing dragon of motion variables. It can be violent; some people are scared of it; and if it's big, it forces you to take notice. That feeling you get when you're sitting in a plane during take-off, or slamming on the brakes in a car, or turning a corner at a high speed in a go kart are all situations where you are accelerating.
Acceleration is the name we give to any process where the velocity changes. Since velocity is a speed and a direction, there are only two ways for you to accelerate: change your speed or change your direction—or change both.
If you’re not changing your speed and you’re not changing your direction, then you simply cannot be accelerating—no matter how fast you’re going. So, a jet moving with a constant velocity at 800 miles per hour along a straight line has zero acceleration, even though the jet is moving really fast, since the velocity isn’t changing. When the jet lands and quickly comes to a stop, it will have acceleration since it’s slowing down.
[Wait, what?]
Compared to displacement and velocity, acceleration is like the angry, fire-breathing dragon of motion variables. It can be violent; some people are scared of it; and if it's big, it forces you to take notice. That feeling you get when you're sitting in a plane during take-off, or slamming on the brakes in a car, or turning a corner at a high speed in a go kart are all situations where you are accelerating.
Acceleration is the name we give to any process where the velocity changes. Since velocity is a speed and a direction, there are only two ways for you to accelerate: change your speed or change your direction—or change both.
If you’re not changing your speed and you’re not changing your direction, then you simply cannot be accelerating—no matter how fast you’re going. So, a jet moving with a constant velocity at 800 miles per hour along a straight line has zero acceleration, even though the jet is moving really fast, since the velocity isn’t changing. When the jet lands and quickly comes to a stop, it will have acceleration since it’s slowing down.
[Wait, what?]
Or, you can think about it this way. In a car you could accelerate by hitting the gas or the brakes, either of which would cause a change in speed. But you could also use the steering wheel to turn, which would change your direction of motion. Any of these would be considered an acceleration since they change velocity.
[Huh?]
To be specific, acceleration is defined to be the rate of change of the velocity.
a=ΔvΔt=vf−viΔt
The above equation says that the acceleration, a , is equal to the difference between the initial and final velocities, vf−vi , divided by the time, Δt , it took for the velocity to change from vi to vf .
[Really?]
Note that the units for acceleration are m/ss , which can also be written as ms2 . That's because acceleration is telling you the number of meters per second by which the velocity is changing, during every second. Keep in mind that if you solve a=vf−viΔt for vf , you get a rearranged version of this formula that’s really useful.
vf=vi+aΔt
I have to warn you that acceleration is one of the first really tricky ideas in physics. The problem isn’t that people lack an intuition about acceleration. Many people do have an intuition about acceleration, which unfortunately happens to be wrong much of the time. As Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
The incorrect intuition usually goes a little something like this: “Acceleration and velocity are basically the same thing, right?” Wrong. People often erroneously think that if the velocity of an object is large, then the acceleration must also be large. Or they think that if the velocity of an object is small, it means that acceleration must be small. But that “just ain’t so”. The value of the velocity at a given moment does not determine the acceleration. In other words, I can be changing my velocity at a high rate regardless of whether I'm currently moving slow or fast.
To help convince yourself that the magnitude of the velocity does not determine the acceleration, try figuring out the one category in the following chart that would describe each scenario.
[Show me the explanation for the answer.]
I wish I could say that there was only one misconception when it comes to acceleration, but there is another even more pernicious misconception lurking here—it has to do with whether the acceleration is negative or positive.
People think, “If the acceleration is negative, then the object is slowing down, and if the acceleration is positive, then the object is speeding up, right?” Wrong. An object with negative acceleration could be speeding up, and an object with positive acceleration could be slowing down. How is this so? Consider the fact that acceleration is a vector that points in the same direction as the change in velocity. That means that the direction of the acceleration determines whether you will be adding to or subtracting from the velocity. Mathematically, a negative acceleration means you will subtract from the current value of the velocity, and a positive acceleration means you will add to the current value of the velocity. Subtracting from the value of the velocity could increase the speed of an object if the velocity was already negative to begin with since it would cause the magnitude to increase.
A neurotic tiger shark starts from rest and speeds up uniformly to 12 meters per second in a time of 3 seconds.
What was the magnitude of the average acceleration of the tiger shark?
Start with the definition of acceleration.
a=vf−viΔt
Plug in the final velocity, initial velocity, and time interval.
a=12ms−0ms3s
A bald eagle is flying to the left with a speed of 34 meters per second when a gust of wind blows back against the eagle causing it to slow down with a constant acceleration of a magnitude 8 meters per second squared.
What will the speed of the bald eagle be after the wind has blown for 3 seconds?
Start with the definition of acceleration.
a=vf−viΔt
Symbolically solve to isolate the final velocity on one side of the equation.
vf=vi+aΔt
4 days ago · Learn how to find acceleration using three different methods based on speed, distance, or force. Use the calculator to enter the known parameters and get the acceleration value in SI or Imperial units.
Learn how to calculate acceleration as the change in velocity over time, and see how it applies to cars, sports, and physics. Watch a video tutorial and practice with exercises and quizzes.
- 9 min
- Sal Khan
Jan 2, 2023 · Learn what acceleration is, how to calculate it, and what types of acceleration exist. Find the formula for average acceleration, instantaneous acceleration, and centripetal acceleration, and see solved problems.
