What are velocity vectors?
Sketch the velocity vectors! A task that makes many physics students sweat blood and water. But not you, once you know what velocity vectors actually are.
What speed vectors actually reveal
- You are certainly aware that speed is a physical quantity that can be calculated from the distance covered by the time required. A speed vector now adds the direction to the parameters time and distance.
- The vector points in a certain direction and is intended to indicate by referencing the direction in which a body is moving at a given speed. The distance through time parameters are represented by the length of the vector.
- Ultimately, the entire movement of a given body can be visualized using speed vectors. But not only that, the speed vector is also used to calculate places where the body will be in the future.
- The length of the vector encodes the speed of the corresponding object, and the direction of movement is also specified. You can now use the vector to see where the object will be in an hour, for example, if its speed and direction of movement remain the same.
- This means that you can use the speed to calculate the distance that the given object travels within a certain period of time. This distance can finally be added graphically to the vector itself.
There is a simple connection between speed and free fall and will ...
Which construction methods are possible for the vectors
Now to practice - if you want to construct a velocity vector, the appropriate procedure depends heavily on the task at hand. Possible methods are doubling or tripling, mirroring or construction according to the type of force parallelogram.
- Suppose you are faced with a task where two points are given for an object. The first indicates where the body was 2 minutes ago, the second indicates where it is currently located. You should now draw the speed vector for the body, which indicates where it will be at a constant speed and in a constant direction in another 4 minutes.
- Now you first draw in the two given points and connect them to one Straight lines. The vector finally points in the direction of the current point away from the point 2 minutes ago. You now have to triple your straight line.
- So you mirror the point back once and the new point again. Once that is done, all you have to do is place the arrow and you have your speed vector. Finally, the unit of the vector must be specified. Usually it is meters per second.
The task described here is one of the simplest for constructing velocity vectors. For difficult tasks it is advisable to proceed according to the parallelogram of forces. How the parallelogram of forces is to be used cannot be explained here for reasons of space. However, you can find all kinds of explanations on the Internet Tutorials and task examples for the same.
