Flashcards: conphys
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Created by:
berniebrug1 on January 12, 2011
Subjects:
Log in to favorite or report as inappropriate.All 12 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 mechanics | the study of the motion of objects |
| kinematics | the science of describing motion with words |
| scalar quantity | a quantity that only has numerical value (or magnitude) and no direction |
| vector quantity | a quantity that has magnitude and dirction (velocity) |
| distance | a scalar quantity referring to the distance an object covers during its motion. |
| displacement | a vector quantity referring to the distance between where and object started and where it ended up |
| speed | a scalar quantity describing how fast and object is moving |
| velocity | a vector quantity describing how fact an object is moving and in what direction |
| acceleration | a vector quantity describing how fast an object changes its direction |
| motion graphs | P-T or V-T graphs are ways of representing an object's motion in graph form |
| free fall | when an object is falling without air resistance. the only force acting upon a free falling object is gravity |
| gravity | the force that pulls all objects towards each other. The earth pulls objects towards it, so the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s/s. The gravity is less on a smaller surface |