What is the definition of linear velocity?

Question

And how do you get it?

Answer 1

Linear velocity implies a 1 dimensional system. In a 1 dimensional system, forward is positive and backward is negative.

The velocity in any number of dimensions is a combination of speed and direction. It is a vector.

In this case, the 1 dimensional case, all you need to know is the speed of the object and whether it is going in the positive direction or the negative direction.

Now, reading more into your question, the word 'linear' in your question may being used to differentiate it from angular velocity. In that case, the general definition of velocity could be what the question is about. In that case, linear or instantaneous linear velocity is a speed at an exact moment in time coupled with a direction of travel. 30 miles per hour is a speed. Heading North at 30 miles per hour is a velocity.

OK, how do you get it. Normally, average velocity is defined by the change in position divided by the time it takes to change. But, velocity is the instantaneous rate of change.

If all you have is a ruler and a stop watch, you can't get the exact velocity at a single point in time. You have to measure something else that is tied to it. In cars, speedometers work off of the electricity generated by a wheel turning that is connected to the wheels of the car.

You get closer and closer to the instantaneous velocity by measuring the average velocity over shorter and shorter time periods. However, you cannot directly measure the instantaneous velocity because you cannot measure something over zero time.

In math/physics, you use some sort of equation that tells you what the position will be at any given point in time. Then, you take the derivative of that function to get another function that will tell you the velocity. Again, you have still not directly measured the velocity.

If there was some way of knowing that the velocity of an object was not changing, then, you could measure the average velocity over a time period and you would know that it was the same as the instantaneous velocity as there was no change in the velocity over the measurement time period.

So, the answers to your question are: measure something that is proportional to the instantaneous velocity or measure the average velocity when there is no acceleration.

Answer 2

Linear velocity is defined to be the ratio of the distance travelled in a straight line and the time taken for it. If the object is not moving in a straight line then the distance must be as small as possible tending to zero,and the above ratio would be called instantaneous linear velocity.

Answer 3

Velocity = Linear Distance devided by Time

V = x / t
V = 20 feet / 2 seconds = 10 ft/sec

Answer 4

linear velocity mayb defined as the velocity wid which a particle moves while covering a "specific linear" distance in a given time interval.....

Answer 5

How fast something is going in a given direction.

Answer 6

Same direction and constan spead.

Answer 7

v = dx/dt where v and x are vectors

Answer 8

http://www.efm.leeds.ac.uk/CIVE/CIVE1140/section01/linear_motion.html