What is Velocity?

The terms velocity and speed give us an idea of how fast or slow an object is moving. Quite often, we across situations where we need to identify which of the two or more objects is moving faster. One can easily tell the fastest of the two if they are moving in the same direction on the same road. But if their direction of motion is in the opposite direction, then it is difficult to determine the fastest. In such cases, the concept of velocity is helpful about which we shall be discussing in this article.

What is Velocity?

The meaning of velocity of an object can be defined as the rate of change of the object’s position with respect to a frame of reference and time, it might sound complicated but velocity is basically speeding in a specific direction. It is a vector quantity, which means we need both magnitude (speed) and direction to define velocity. The SI unit of it is meter per second (ms-1) if there is a change in magnitude or the direction in the velocity of a body the body is said to be accelerating.

Initial and Final Velocity

Initial velocity describes how fast an object travels when gravity first applies force on the object. On the other hand, the final velocity is a vector quantity that measures the speed and direction of a moving body after it has reached its maximum acceleration.

How to find the final velocity?

Finding the final velocity is simple with a few calculations and basic conceptual knowledge.

1. Determine the object’s original velocity by dividing the time it took for the object to travel a given distance by the total distance. In the equation V = d/t, V is the velocity, d is the distance and t is the time.
2. Determine the object’s acceleration by dividing the object’s mass by the force and multiply the answer by the time it took for it to accelerate. For example, if the object weighs 30 kg and has a force of 15 N applied to it, then the acceleration would be 4 m/s.
3. Add the quantity obtained from Step 1 and Step 2 to obtain the final velocity. For example, if your initial velocity was 3 m/s and your object acceleration is 4 m/s, your final velocity is 7 m/s (3 + 4 = 7).

Velocity Units

The si unit of velocity is m/s (m⋅s−1). Other units and dimension of velocity are given in the table below.

 Unit of velocity Common symbols v, v, $\vec{v}$ SI unit m/s Other units mph, ft/s Dimension LT−1

Speed and Velocity

Speed and velocity can be a little confusing for most of us, well the difference between speed and velocity is that speed gives us an idea of how fast an object is moving whereas velocity not only tells us its speed but also tells us in which direction the body is moving. We can define speed as a function of distance travelled whereas velocity is a function of displacement. Instantaneous velocity is the velocity of a body at any given time. Average velocity is the total displacement by total time and is given by v = △x△t where ∆x is the total displacement of the body and ∆t is the time. Average velocity is always less than or equal to that of average speed; this is because displacement can never be higher than the distance travelled but the distance travelled can be higher than that of displacement.

Example of Velocity

To understand the concept of instantaneous velocity and average velocity let’s take this example. Jewel goes to school in her dad’s car every morning, her school is 8 km from her home and she takes 15 mins to travel, but when she looks at the speedometer on the dashboard of the car it shows different reading all the time now how would she know her velocity?

Well, the average velocity of jewel’s car could be found by,

For convenience, we have considered the car to move in a straight line and we will convert all the units of time to hours. Therefore 15 mins = 1560 = 0.25 hours.

average velocity, v = △x△t

v = 8km/0.25hrs

v = 32 km/h

Now we see that even though the car may vary its speed if it covers the same amount of distance in the same amount of time every time its average velocity will remain the same.

Difference between Speed and Velocity

The detailed comparison in tabular format is given below.

 Velocity VS Speed SPEED VELOCITY Speed is the quantitative measure of how quickly something is moving. Velocity defines the direction of the movement of the body or the object. Speed is primarily a scalar quantity Velocity is essentially a vector quantity It is the rate of change of distance It is the rate of change of displacement Speed of an object moving can never be negative Velocity of a moving object can be zero. Speed is a prime indicator of the rapidity of the object. Velocity is the prime indicator of the position as well as the rapidity of the object. It can be defined as the distance covered by an object in unit time. Velocity can be defined as the displacement of the object in unit time.

Let’s summarize what we have learned:

• (a) This is a function of displacement.
• (b) We require both magnitude and direction to define velocity.
• (c) Instantaneous velocity is the velocity at any given moment of time, whereas average velocity is the total displacement divided by total time.
• (d) A changing velocity indicates acceleration.