2006-09-14 03:38:33 · 16 answers · asked by niamah 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
velocity can take into account direction, which is why you can get negative velocity, speed is a less scientific term
2006-09-14 03:42:00 · answer #1 · answered by ? 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
As people have said: speed is how fast you are going, velocity is how fast and in which direction.
Speed can never be negative, and is a measure of how fast you are travelling. Velocity is how fast you are travelling relative to a direction. So if you are travelling due North, your Easterly velocity is zero.
Velocity if very important. Think about a car crash (for instance). If you are told that when two cars hit each other, one is going at 30 mph, and the other was going at 31 mph, that's no use! You don't know how bad the accident was, or where the cars would end up afterwards. If they were travelling in the same direction, and the one at 31 mph came up behind the one at 30mph, then the faster one would only be going 1mph faster than the other one: hardly a crash at all. If they are travelling towards each other, then the impact is at 61mph, a very serious crash. And if they are travelling at right angles to each other, then you're goign to get cars spinning round and going off in different directions.
2006-09-14 10:48:25 · answer #2 · answered by Steve-Bob 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Velocity is not the same as speed. Colloquially it may be, and in many circumstances it would be pedantic quibbling to insist on using the correct word, but in other circumstances it is important to understand the difference.
That difference is not because velocity takes into account distance travelled. It is because velocity takes into account the *direction" of travel.
If you travel at the same speed, but change direction, your velocity has changed. For instance if you go round and round in a circle at a constant speed, you are continuously accellerating, i.e. changing your velocity. And it requires a force to have been applied to make that happen.
2006-09-17 17:30:22 · answer #3 · answered by Philip N 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As far as I remember from Physics, Velocity is considered a Vector. Vectors are defined by there magnitude and direction. Once a vector, like velocity, changes it's magnitude and/or direction, then that becomes another vector. Speed is very similar to velocity, but is not considered a vector .Speed is the average velocity an object may be traveling at .It takes into account all the individual vectors traveled by the object as it changes magnitude and direction as it displaces.
2006-09-14 10:51:43 · answer #4 · answered by anthony1017 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, velocity is not the same as speed. Velocity is speed in a given direction.
An object in orbit has constantly changing velocity but the same speed. If you follow me.
2006-09-14 11:13:47 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
speed is seen as a quantity MPH, KPH, m/s, it identifies how fast an object is moving
Velocity - has two elements speed being one of them, so how fast was the object moving and the other is direction, in which direction was it traveling. Velocity is seen as a vector so needs both speed and direction to accurately describe it.
2006-09-14 10:42:51 · answer #6 · answered by smartypantsmbcanada 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Velocity is a vector and has magnitude and direction. Speed has only magnitude and is a scalar quantity.
Velocity is not the same as speed.
2006-09-14 10:42:56 · answer #7 · answered by gogs 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Velocity takes into account DIRECTION, not distance.
2006-09-14 10:46:25 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Speed is a scalar, velocity is a vector. A scalar just has a magnitude. A vector has a magnitude and direction.
2006-09-15 05:12:33 · answer #9 · answered by helen g 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Velocity is a vector. A vector has a magnitude and a direction.
So, a velocity indicates BOTH a speed and a direction.
Ex: 50mph, due north.
Speed is a scalar. It is a magnitude that is directionless.
Ex: 50mph
2006-09-14 10:44:24 · answer #10 · answered by Jared Z 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋