what's the difference between initial and final velocity?

Question

ok i'm confused. if a person sleds down a hill and the sled's velocity is 7.0 m/s at the bottom of the hill, wouldn't that be final velocity?

how do you know when the final velocity is zero and when the initial velocity is zero???

Answer 1

To your first question: yes, it would be the final velocity. The initial velocity is 0 because the sled is motionless until you put it into motion. To the second question of initial and final velocities, this can be more clearly stated as follows: initial velocity is the velocity you measure a body to have, at the beginning of your experiment. Whatever it may be. The final velocity is the velocity you measure the body to have attained by the end of your experiment. Whatever that may be. They may be the same or they may be different. Initial and final simply refer to the beginning and ending conditions. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

It is assumed that the sled starts from rest, hence, the initial velocity is zero. If at the end of the problem, the object is stopped, the final velocity is zero.

Bozo

Answer 3

usually you will see Initail velocity written as either Vsub o or V sub i. this simply means it the velocity taht something starts off at. like if a car starts from 0 mph, then increases to say 50. Its initail would be 0. Where as the final velocity would be 50 because it is not indicated that the car has come to a stop at any point. usually you will see the final velocity written as Vsub f or just plain ol' V.

Answer 4

Velocity is a measure of speed and direction. Initial Speed is the beggining speed and Final speed is the final speed. If initial speed is 0 m/s than it starts at zero, but Final speed gets to zero after the object slows down enough and deccelerates and loses all motion.

Answer 5

If you came in late you wouldn't