Tuesday 13 September 2011

Position vs. Time Graphs Sept. 13 2011

The main part of the lesson today was about position vs. time graphs but at first we did an example equation that dealt with the lesson from the day before. It was connected to speed and velocity but was a bit harder than the others we had done before. The question had three velocities and times in different directions and wanted the average velocity of the three. We needed to find the displacement of the three velcoities then divide by the total time to get the answer.
Next we looked at position and time graphs. Looking at these graphs connected back to what we had worked on last week. We had to graph the speed of and object and analyze the slope of the line. Today we looked at some of the basic rules with position and time graphs. We leanred that the slope of the line gives us the object's velocity which we had figured out last week. We learned that the slope of a line segement between two points on the line tells us the average velocity during that period of time. We also learned that the slope of the tangent touching a certain point on the line tells us the instantaneous velocity at that certain time. We also looked at a few different types of position vs. time graphs. There is the zero velocity graph which is a horizontal line across the graph telling us that the object is not moving. Another graph is the constant velocity graph which is a straight line that shows us the velocity does not change as the object moves. Another example of a position vs. time graph is the continuously changing velocity graph. This graph is a parabolic graph and the average speed of the object graphed by this line has changing velocity as it moves.

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