Tuesday, 5 August 2014

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WHAT IS ACCELERATION

Definition-

Acceleration, in physics, is the rate at which the velocity of an object changes over time.
 An object's acceleration is the net result of any and all forces acting on the object, as described by Newton's Second Law.

SI unit of acceleration -

 The SI unit for acceleration is the metre per second squared (m/s2).

 Accelerations are vector quantities (they have magnitude and direction) and add according to the parallelogram law. As a vector, the calculated net force is equal to the product of the object's mass (a scalar quantity) and the acceleration.

For example,

 when a car starts from a standstill (zero relative velocity) and travels in a straight line at increasing speeds, it is accelerating in the direction of travel. If the car turns there is an acceleration toward the new direction. For this example, we can call the accelerating of the car forward a "linear acceleration", which passengers in the car might experience as force pushing them back into their seats. When changing directions, we might call this "non-linear acceleration", which passengers might experience as a sideways force. If the speed of the car decreases, this is an acceleration in the opposite direction of the direction of the vehicle, sometimes called deceleration

Mathematical description-

Mathematically, instantaneous acceleration—acceleration over an infinitesimal interval of time—is the rate of change of velocity over time:
\mathbf{a} = \lim_{{\Delta t}\to 0} \frac{\Delta \mathbf{v}}{\Delta t} = \frac{d\mathbf{v}}{dt}, i.e., the derivative of the velocity vector as a function of time.
(Here and elsewhere, if motion is in a straight line, vector quantities can be substituted by scalars in the equations.)
Average acceleration over a period of time is the change in velocity ( \Delta \mathbf{v}) divided by the duration of the period ( \Delta t)
\boldsymbol{\bar{a}} = \frac{\Delta \mathbf{v}}{\Delta t}.

 Unit of acceleration -

Acceleration has the dimensions of velocity (L/T) divided by time, i.e., L/T2. The SI unit of acceleration is the metre per second squared (m/s2); this can be called more meaningfully "metre per second per second", as the velocity in metres per second changes by the acceleration value, every second.


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