Is average speed the same thing as average velocity?

Question

I'm so confused. My physics book say they are two different things yet avg speed =total distance/total time and average velocity is d/t. can someone explain the difference to me (if there is one)

Answer 1

Velocity takes direction into account. For example, if you throw a ball 10 meters straight up in the air and catch it when it comes back down 4 seconds later, the average speed would be some number greater then 0, obviously, because it moved. The total distance would be 20 meters and with 4 seconds the average speed would be 5 m/s. But with velocity it looks at the distance moved from point A to point B (or in this case, point A to point A). Because the starting point is the same as the ending point, we'd say the change in place is 0 meters and 0/4 = 0 so that the average velocity of the ball was 0 m/s. In truth, the ball moved a positive velocity on the way up and an equal but negative velocity on the way down.

Answer 2

Average speed is defined as half of the final speed. Velocity implies the direction . So to define average velocity with a moving object, let say an airplain for example whcih changes direction continuously,you have to add all the directions vectorialy which would give an average direction (the resultant sum of all directions)
So the velocity average would be the average speed at an average direction.
This yields a vector of which speed is the magnetude and the angle is the direction.

Answer 3

The basic thing about this is that, numerically they both would be the same. The formula for average velocity does not specify the direction directly and hence it has the same formula as speed. Speed and velocity are the same numerically, but velocity is a vector quantity having direction whereas speed is a scalar having no direction, only a numerical value

Answer 4

There is a difference, because velocity includes direction and speed doesn't. So something that is rotating around its center of mass will have a positive average speed but zero average velocity.

Answer 5

Ave speed is total distance over time, yes. But velocity is displacement over time...So you need to know the difference between distance and displacement.

Velocity is a vector quantity, so it has a magnitude and direction and speed is independent of direction.

Answer 6

They are very similar as you can tell by the definitions, but velocity describes how fast something is moving and the direction it is going while speed only describes how fast something is moving. For example, when describing the forces of gravity, physicists describe the rate at which things fall as velocity because objects are dropping towards the ground.

Answer 7

Imagine a regular X, y graph with a car at 0,0.. Start at 0,0 and go in reverse to -7, 0. The speed is 7 units over time. The velocity is -7 units over time. difference is speed has no direction.

Answer 8

I think they are the same thing... but velocity is just more encompassing. speed is how fast something goes like a rabbit or a car.. but velocity would include the wind. You can't switch them.. you can't say the speed of the wind. Hope that help.

Answer 9

The difference is that velocity=speed IN A SPECIFIC DIRECTION. so if your direction changes, the velocity changes even if the speed doesn't

Answer 10

Strictly speaking "Velocity" is a vector, so it has a magnitude and direction.

"Speed" is the magnitude of the velocity, or mathematically, the norm of the velocity vector.