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Suppose you are riding a bicycle, and slowly you start to merge it into the highway near your house. Here, we tend to pedal faster and promptly to increase our speed. So, this increase in the velocity of the object over time is referred to as acceleration. You might have heard this term a lot of times in your daily life. It is due to acceleration that a body integrates itself with the environment around it. Take another example of this, let’s say that you are going on a road trip and you have a current speed of 70 km/h. To match the momentum with other vehicles, you increase your car’s speed to 80 km/h. So, here we refer to cars as moving in acceleration.
Define Acceleration
Acceleration refers to the change in the velocity of an object over some time. Here, a change in velocity can either be a change in speed or the direction of motion, or both in some cases. In general terms, we can refer to acceleration as the speeding of the vehicle, where there can be a change in the speed or the direction, no matter if it’s up or down.
If the object is speeding up then it is referred to as positive acceleration while on the other hand if the object is speeding down then the acceleration which is present is known as the negative acceleration. In the words of Newton, the net unbalanced force which acts on the object makes it move or accelerate in the direction it wants.
Formula for acceleration
Acceleration can be defined in two basic ways. One is with a change in velocity and the other is with the help of the net unbalanced force that acts on the body.
Change in Velocity of the object
Under this, acceleration can be defined as the ratio between the rate of change in velocity (Final-initial velocity) in the time interval (t).
Force acting upon the body
This formula for acceleration is derived from Newton’s second law which includes mass, force and acceleration in the equation.
Force (F) = mass (m) × acceleration (a)
Types of acceleration
Uniform acceleration
Uniform acceleration refers to the type of acceleration when the body is constantly accelerating or changing its velocity.
Here, it should be noted that if a body is moving in a circle at a constant speed, that doesn’t mean that it has zero acceleration. Acceleration is present there because even if the speed isn’t changing, the direction of the object is continuously changing, this change in velocity is happening here.
Non-uniform acceleration
Non-uniform acceleration refers to the type of acceleration in which there is a continual change in the speed or the direction of the object. We can understand this with an example of a car in a traffic jam; one goes changing its speed according to the space it gets between the jam. So, here the body is non-uniformly accelerated.
Examples of acceleration
- Suppose there is a shark at rest and starts moving uniformly with a speed of 15 m/s in a time duration of 3 seconds. So, what will be the acceleration of the shark here? Is it accelerating?
Yes, the shark is accelerating because there is a change in the speed of the shark over time from 0 to 15 m/s. Now, we are aware of the formula that involves a change in velocity.
Acceleration = 15 – 0
3
Acceleration = 5 m/s
- Another example can be of a body moving in a circular motion. Here, it should be noted that if a body is moving in a circle at a constant speed, that doesn’t mean that it has zero acceleration. Acceleration is present there because even if the speed isn’t changing, the direction of the object is continuously changing, this change in velocity is happening here.
- Let’s take an example of a truck that is moving with a constant velocity of 5 m/s. However, it stops for some time and after a break of 30 seconds, it starts moving again. Now, it gains a constant velocity of 35 m/s. What would be an acceleration in this case?
Under this case, the truck’s initial velocity is 5 m/s and after seconds, it maintains the final velocity at 35 m/s. We are aware of the formula for acceleration in this case, which involves initial and final velocity and the period taken.
Acceleration under this would be 1 m/s
Conclusion
Acceleration refers to a change in the velocity of the object within a given period. As a vector quantity, acceleration involves both changes in the speed and the direction of the moving object. If either of the conditions is satisfied then the object is said to be in acceleration. Acceleration is sometimes confused with speeding up only. However, if the object is speeding down, it is still referred to as being in acceleration. So, one shouldn’t confuse acceleration with positive acceleration only, it involves negative acceleration as well.
