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Motion Vocabulary
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Displacement | the length and direction of a straight line between two locations, or positions |
Distance | a measure of the length of a path that a moving object travels |
Velocity | a quantity that measures the rate at which the position of an object changes in time. Velocity always describes a distance and a direction |
Speed | measures the rate at which an object moves along a path. Unlike velocity, speed is not considered to have a direction |
Acceleration | is a quantity that measures the rate at which an object changes its velocity. People often talk about an object decelerating when the object slows down. An object that slows down is actually experiencing a negative acceleration |
force | a push or pull on an object |
balanced forces | When two or more forces act on an object but the object’s velocity does not change |
stationary | not moving |
rest | the state of an object being stationary relative to a particular frame of reference or another object |
unbalanced forces | Forces that cause a change in the motion of an object |
Friction | the force that resists motion between two surfaces |
Inertia | the resistance to any change in the state of motion of any physical object. All matter has inertia, and the inertia of matter does not change until the matter is acted on by unbalanced forces that cause a change in motion |
Mass | the total amount of matter of an object |
Gravity | the force of attraction that exists between any two or more masses. Gravity can refer to the force that Earth exerts on everything |