What is the difference between constant acceleration and changing acceleration?

Question

I am just trying to findf a quick answer. This is in science terms as if you were drawing a graph of the accelereation of your boat or something like dat.

Answer 1

To start with, let's re-define acceleration (hold on - this helps). Another way of saying 'acceleration' is 'change in velocity over time'. This makes sense, right? If you're not accelerating, your velocity doesn't change over time... it stays constant.

So you'll see some of these changes in a graph of velocity versus time. If you have a constant acceleration (change in velocity over time), you'll see a straight, sloped line. The velocity is getting bigger or smaller at a constant rate. If your acceleration varies, however, the velocity graph will not be completely straight... the amount it varies from straight will depend on the kinds of changes.

And of course you'll get the same variances in a graph of acceleration versus time. Where acceleration is constant, it will be an exactly straight UNsloped line. It neither increases nor decreases, so it must be that way. The y-intercept will indicate what the acceleration is. When the acceleration varies, the graph will vary from that line, going up or down depending on the direction of variance.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

In constant acceleration the increase in speed is the same for any two equal units of time. For example, if the acceleration is 5 feet per second per second, then at the end of each second the object will be traveling 5 feet per second faster than it was traveling at the end of the previous second.

Like this:

SECONDS SPEED (ft/sec)
0-------------5
2------------10
3------------15
4------------20

In changing acceleration, the object is moving faster at the end of each time increment than it was at the end of the previous time increment (it is accelerating) - but not always by the same amount. It could be either decreasing acceleration or increasing acceleration. For example:

(Decreasing acceleration)
SECONDS SPEED
0--------------0
5--------------5
2--------------9
3-------------12
4-------------14

(Increasing acceleration)
SECONDS SPEED
0--------------0
1--------------4
2--------------9
3-------------15
4-------------23

Answer 3

Constant acceleration would have an unchanging upward slope; it would be a straight line

Changing acceleration would have a variant slope; the slope would be steeper at some points