Describing Motion flashcards

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What is a reference point?Position and Displacement: A chosen location used to describe position.
What is an origin?Position and Displacement: The point assigned coordinate zero.
What is distance traveled?Position and Displacement: The total length of a path.
What is displacement?Position and Displacement: Final position minus initial position, with direction.
What is a scalar?Position and Displacement: A quantity with magnitude and no direction.
What is a vector?Position and Displacement: A quantity with magnitude and direction.
Can a round trip have zero displacement?Position and Displacement: Yes, even though the distance traveled is positive.
What does a negative displacement mean?Position and Displacement: Motion toward the chosen negative direction.
What is average speed?Speed and Velocity: Total distance divided by total elapsed time.
What is average velocity?Speed and Velocity: Displacement divided by elapsed time.
Can speed be negative?Speed and Velocity: No; speed is a magnitude.
Can one-dimensional velocity be negative?Speed and Velocity: Yes; it points in the chosen negative direction.
What does a speedometer approximate?Speed and Velocity: Instantaneous speed.
What does m/s mean?Speed and Velocity: Meters traveled per second.
When is average velocity zero?Speed and Velocity: When total displacement is zero over a nonzero time.
Why can average speed differ from average velocity magnitude?Speed and Velocity: A path can turn back, so distance can exceed displacement magnitude.
What does position–time slope represent?Motion Graphs: Velocity.
What does a flat position–time line mean?Motion Graphs: Position is constant; the object is at rest.
What does velocity–time slope represent?Motion Graphs: Acceleration.
What does signed velocity–time area represent?Motion Graphs: Displacement.
How do you find distance from a velocity–time graph?Motion Graphs: Add magnitudes of the separate signed areas.
What does a negative velocity mean?Motion Graphs: Motion in the chosen negative direction.
How can a position graph show a turnaround?Motion Graphs: Its slope changes sign.
Does a rising position graph show an uphill road?Motion Graphs: No; it shows position increasing with time.