Kinematics in a straight line
This chapter explores kinematics of a particle moving in straight line. The objectives through this chapter include solving problems involving motion in a straight line with constant acceleration, be able to model an object moving vertically under gravity, understand distance-time graphs and speed-time graphs.
There is a lot of situations which we can model as motion in a straight line with constant acceleration.
- Acceleration due to planet’s gravity is constant so in a diver’s situation we can find the vertical speed by using the constant acceleration formulae. We tend to ignore air resistance when modelling motion under gravity. When the sky diver is not accelerating the force of the air resistance is equals to the force of gravity. The speed at which this happens is known as terminal velocity.
- You can calculate the depth of a deep hole or well by simply dropping a stone and timing how long it takes to reach the bottom
