Question:
The change in velocity of an object is 0 over a short time interval. Which is true?
Summer
2012-09-14 18:48:18 UTC
Assume the quantities are instantaneous unless stated otherwise.

1. Nothing can be determined without additional information.
2. The object must be changing position.
3. The object must have constant acceleration over time.
4. The object must be at rest.
5. The object must begin and end at the same position.
6. The object must have zero average velocity over the interval.
7. The object must have zero average acceleration over the interval.
8. The object must have constant velocity over the interval.
Three answers:
anonymous
2012-09-14 19:21:13 UTC
Both 7 and 8 appear, at first sight, to be true...



If there is no change in velocity then there is no acceleration.

If there is no change in velocity than the velocity is constant (even if it is zero.)



HOWEVER that "assume the quantities are instantaneous" makes it a whole different ballgame!



Just because an object has the same INSTANTANEOUS velocity at the start and end of an interval tells us nothing about what happened DURING the interval.



Therefore, the correct answer is 1 because the object could have sped up, slowed down or changed direction and then gone back to it's original speed and direction during the interval.



"A short time interval" is absolutely meaningless!

Are your engineering units of time: seconds, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries or what?



0.01 centuries is an entire year!

"Short" is an arbitrary and relative concept that is meaningless without further definition.



e.g.; Let's define our short time interval as 2 seconds.

If I am holding a brick in my hand 1 meter above the ground and start my stopwatch; the initial velocity is zero.



At the end of 2 seconds the brick is sitting on the ground with a final velocity of zero.

(I released the brick half a second after I started the stopwatch.)



I know that the initial instantaneous velocity of the brick at the start of the interval was zero and that the instantaneous velocity of the brick at the end of the interval was also zero.
will a
2012-09-14 19:25:54 UTC
The answer is 8 . It only says the change in velocity of an object is 0 over some time interval. It does not say that the object it is not moving.
Lena
2012-09-14 19:04:08 UTC
the answer is 7. The object has a zero acceleration because acceleration is defined as the change in velocity over time. If the change in velocity is 0 then the acceleration is 0 also.


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