Kinematics
Kinematics is the study of a body's motion without concern to the forces that act upon it.
Displacement
[edit | edit source]A body's displacement is its change in position from some initial point of reference. Displacement is defined the difference between that body's current position and its initial position , such that:
Where is the displacement of the body, which may also be expressed as . Additionally, in constant acceleration, a body's displacement may also be expressed as:
Where is the acceleration, is the velocity, is the initial velocity, and is the time.
Velocity
[edit | edit source]A body's velocity is the rate at which it is displaced over a given interval of time. Therefore, the velocity is proportional to the displacement and change in time , such that:
The velocity at a given moment for a body experiencing some acceleration over a period of starting at some velocity is given by:
Additionally, when displacement is known, the velocity is given by:
Acceleration
[edit | edit source]A body's acceleration is the rate at which an object's velocity changes over a given interval of time. Thus, the acceleration is given by the change in velocity over an interval , such that: