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If a car moves with a constant speed, can you say that it also moves with a constant velocity? Please give an example of something because i don't understand this!!?!?

2007-09-23 13:57:25 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Physics

3 answers

velocity includes direction
If the car was going a constant speed while it was going around a curve, it would not be going a constant velocity, since the direction is changing.

2007-09-23 14:05:39 · answer #1 · answered by Marvin 4 · 0 0

No. Speed is a scalar quantity, velocity is a vector quantity. If the car moves at constant speed, but changes direction, the speed stays the same, but the velocity changes. An example is a car going around a curve maintaining a constant speed in the direction of motion, but the direction changes. From Newton's first law, an object at constant velocity experiences no forces. The fact that the car going around a curve experiences centrifugal force shows that the velocity is not constant.

2007-09-23 21:08:13 · answer #2 · answered by gp4rts 7 · 0 0

no.. speed and velocity are two distinctly different quantities. Speed is a scalar quantity and velocity is a vector quantity. Velocity, being a vector, has both a magnitude and a direction. The magnitude of the velocity vector is the instantaneous speed of the object. The direction of the velocity vector is directed in the same direction which the object moves.
Example, a body moves in circular motion. Since an object is moving in a circle, its direction is continuously changing. At one moment, the object is moving northward such that the velocity vector is directed northward. One quarter of a cycle later, the object would be moving eastward such that the velocity vector is directed eastward. As the object rounds the circle, the direction of the velocity vector is different than it was the instant before. So while the magnitude of the velocity vector may be constant, the direction of the velocity vector is changing.

2007-09-23 21:12:19 · answer #3 · answered by toink0520 3 · 0 0

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