Speed and Velocity

Velocity can be defined as the travelling rate along with the direction of an object. It is the rate of travelling of any object along with its distance. In simple words, it is the level of the direction of movement of an object. This concept mainly tells a person how fast an object is travelling along with the direction in which it is moving. It is also known as directional speed. The SI unit of velocity is m/s which means metre per second. But it can also be expressed in any unit of distance with time like kilometre per hour, kilometres per second, etc. With this, let’s discuss some other key points about velocity below.

Velocity formula

From the definition, it can be seen that velocity measures the movement of an object. But it can also be used to predict the travel time and make timetables accordingly. In layman’s terms, velocity is the speed in a specific direction of an object. Velocity is a vector quantity that requires magnitude or speed and direction of movement to find out. The velocity formula or the formula to calculate the velocity is:

Velocity = Displacement/Time

The main thing to remember about velocity is that it makes use of displacement rather than distance. So, to find out the velocity, the distance covered is divided by the time taken to cover the distance.

Average Velocity

Average velocity refers to the alteration or change in the position of any object in a given period in a given direction from one place to another. In simple words, it is an average of the velocity. It is the displacement covered by an object in a given time. It is denoted with the sign, Vavg.

The Average velocity formula is:

Average Velocity=Total Displacement/Total Time

Average Velocity=ending position-starting position ending time-starting time

Vavg=x2-x1t2-t1

Where,

Vavg is the Average Velocity

x1 is the starting position of the given object

x2 is the ending position of the given object

t1 is the starting time of the travel, and

t2 is the ending time of travel

Speed

Speed can be defined as the ratio of the distance and time to cover a distance. Speed is a scalar quantity as it includes distance and doesn’t deal with the direction of the object’s movement. The SI unit of speed is a metre per second, while it is a centimetre per second in the CGS system. The formula for calculating the speed of an object is :

speed=distance/time

Difference between speed and velocity

Speed is the rate of change in the distance by the time taken. Velocity is the rate of change of the displacement with the time taken. If we look at this definition, the only difference is the distance and displacement. When talking about the meaning of these two words, distance is the total area travelled by an object, while the word displacement means the change in the position(net) by an object. Speed is a scalar quantity as it uses distance, and distance is a scalar quantity too as it calculates the distance without any use of direction.

At the same time, displacement is a vector quantity used by velocity, which uses direction and magnitude to calculate the distance travelled in w given time. In simple words, it can be said that velocity is the speed with direction which calculates the distance.

Speed is the number that shows how fast an object is moving. On the other side, velocity includes direction therefore, it shows how fast an object is changing its position in a given time. So if the position of the object doesn’t change even while being in motion, then it can be said that the object has no velocity. For example, if a person jogs from his house to the local market and then returns to his home, the velocity will be zero. So long story short, velocity requires the position of the object to be changed while it is not in the case of speed. But if an object is moving constantly far from the place of its start, then it can be said that it has a certain velocity.

Conclusion

So this was a brief idea about velocity, its formula, average velocity and the difference between speed and velocity.

Speed and Velocity