KINEMATICS OF TRANSLATION

POSITION

 refers to the location of an object with respect to a frame of reference.

FRAME OF REFERENCE

 a system that allows an observer to specify quantitatively where and when something is observed.
It may be a physical entity, such as the ground, a room or a building to which the motion or
position of an object is being referred. Example: While riding a hot air balloon, the passenger sees
the hot air balloon pilot at rest. However, to the spectators below, both the passenger and the pilot
are moving. In this example, two frames of reference were used- the passenger’s frame of
reference is the hot air balloon and the spectators’ below is the ground.

Two Studies of Motion:

1. KINEMATICS

 describes motion in terms of displacement, velocity and acceleration.

2. DYNAMICS

 relates force and motion.

TRANSLATION

 is the term used in physics for motion in a straight line. It is commonly described by three
quantities: displacement, velocity and acceleration. In translation, the origin of the Cartesian
coordinate system is considered as the start of motion. Position, velocity and acceleration to the
right of the origin is taken as positive; the left of the origin is negative.

DISTANCE versus DISPLACEMENT

QUANTITIES

 used to describe the motion of a body may be either scalar or vector.

Two Types of Quantities:

1. SCALAR QUANTITIES

 are those that can be described completely by their magnitude and appropriate
unit.

2. VECTOR QUANTITIES

 are completely described by their magnitude, appropriate unit and direction.

DISTANCE (d)

 traveled by a body is the length of the path taken by the body in moving from its initial to final
position.
 distance is a scalar quantity.
 is a measure of the space between two things. It can be measured along any path.

DISPLACEMENT (d)

 is a vector with direction pointing from the initial to the final position and a magnitude or length
equal to the straight-line distance from the initial to the final position. Displacement is a vector
quantity.
  is a vector that measures distance wuth a straight line and in only one path.
 object’s change in position, only measuring from its starting point to the final position.

SPEED and VELOCITY

SPEED

 is a measure of how fast a body moves.

 it is a scalar quantity that doesn’t have a direction.
 distance traveled per unit of time.
Ex. miles per hour

Two Types of Speed:

1. AVERAGE SPEED (v)

 is the total distance traveled by a body per unit time of travel.

v=

Where d and t are the position and time intervals, respectively; d and t are the final position and
time; and d and t are the initial position and time. If d = 0, then d = d. Similarly, if t = 0, then
t = t. Thus,

2. INSTANTANEOUS SPEED (v)

 of a body is its speed at a particular time, with being extremely small. The speed
indicated by a speedometer is instantaneous speed.

VELOCITY (v)

 is the displacement of a body per unit time.

 it is a vector quantity; with magnitude and direction.
 the speed of something in a given direction.
Ex. 75 miles per hour East

Two Types of Velocity:

1. AVERAGE VELOCITY

 is the total displacement per unit time.

v=

2. INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY

 a body is its velocity at an instant of time.

ACCELERATION(a)

 refers to the change in velocity with respect to time.

 it is a vector quantity; speed with direction.
 velocity can change in three ways: (a) change in speed, which may be either an increase or a
decrease; (b) change in direction and (c) change in both speed and direction. Thus, a body is said
to be accelerating when it is moving with changing speed, with constant speed but with changing
direction or with changing speed and changing direction.
 a vehicle’s capacity to gain speed within a short time.
 Ex. an object was moving North at 10 meters per second. The object speeds up and now is
moving North at 15 meters per second.

a=

MOTION

 is the process of something moving or changing place or even just changing position.

Types of Motion:

1. UNIFORM MOTION

 the simplest type of motion. The velocity is constant, the acceleration is zero and
the instantaneous velocity is equal to the average velocity. A body will be
moving with a constant or unchanging velocity moving in a particular direction
and thus acceleration will be zero.

Ex. Movement of hands of watch, rotation and revolution of the earth,

movement of the blades of ceiling fan.

 PROJECTILE MOTION

 is a form of motion experienced by an object or a particle that is

projected near the Earth’s surface and move along a curved path under
the action of gravity only. It can occur under any force field. It has
horizontal motion that is independent of the vertical motion. The motion
of a body thrown horizontally or at an angle other than 90˚ with the
horizontal.

Ex. You throw the ball straight upward or you kick a ball and give it a speed
at an angle to the horizontal or you just drop things and make them free
fall. Water coming out of the Merlion in Singapore and a bullet fired
from a rifle exhibit projectile motion. The path that a projectile follows is
called trajectory. Since a projectile moves both along the horizontal and
vertical directions, its trajectory results in a parabola (a curve where any
point is at an equal distance from a fixed point and a fixed straight line).

The following are the five kinematic equations that relate displacement, velocity and
acceleration for uniformly accelerated motion.

1. v=

2. a=

3. v=

4. d=

5. 2ad =
 2. UNIFORMLY ACCELERATED MOTION

 a body will move with a constant acceleration and its velocity will keep
on changing with time at a constant or steady rate.

 FREE FALL MOTION

 is any motion of a body where gravity is the only acceleration acting

upon it. It can only occur under gravity.

Ex. A stone dropped down an empty well.

Aristotle and Galileo’s Theories on Falling Bodies

ARISTOTLE

 objects in the terrestrial realm move according to the material they contain. Terrestrial
objects rise or fall to a greater or lesser extent, according to the ratio of the four elements
of which they are composed.

 A balloon rises becaused it contains gas. A stone thrown upward eventually goes down
to Earth becaused it contains so much “earth”. Furthermore, part of his theory on motion
is that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

GALILEO

 He questioned Aristotle’s idea of falling bodies. In one of his experiments, he rolled steel
bars of different weights down an inclined plane and measured with reasonable accuracy
the time it took the ball to reach the different markings on the plane as well as the bottom
of the plane. He found out that the balls reached the bottom of the plane at almost the
same time and that the distance traveled was proportional to the square of the elapsed
time. He inferred that without air resistance, all objects would fall to the ground at the
same rate.

NEWTON’S LAW OF MOTION

 LAW OF INERTIA

 A body at rest will remain at rest or a body in motion will continue to move with constant
velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
 Inertia- is the property of a body that tends to resist a change in its state of rest or
motion.
 The mass of a body is a mesure of its inertia. The bigger the mass, the greater the inertia
of the body and the greater the force required to change the body’s state of motion.

 LAW OF ACCELERATION

 An unbalanced force acting on a body produces acceleration.

 The acceleration is directly proportional to the unbalanced force and inversely
proportional to the mass of the body.
 It acts in the same direction as the unbalanced force.

 LAW OF INTERACTION

 In every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION

  Every object in the universe exerts an attractive force on another object. This force is
called gravitational force and is considered as one of the fundamental forces.
 The gravitational force is directly proportional to the masses of two given objects and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

CONSERVATION LAWS

 LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

 Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be changed from one form to
another.
Ex. A car engine burns fuel, converting the fuel’s chemical energy into
mechanical energy to make the car move.

Windmills transform the wind’senergy into mechanical energy in order

to turn turbines, which then produce electricity.

Solar cells convert radiant energy from the sun to electrical nergy, which
in turn may be converted to light, sound or heat energy in homes.

 LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS

 Dates from Antoine Lavoisier’s 1789 discovery that in chemical reactions, the total mass
of the reactants equals the total mass of the products.
 The total mass of an isolated system is constant. An isolated system is a system where no
mass enters or leaves during an interaction.
 With his famous equation 𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐 Albert Einstein showed that mass and energy are
equivalent. The equation shows that mass can be converted to energy and vice versa. The
mass-energy equivalent accounts for the unaccounted mass particularly in nuclear
reactions. As a result of this, the two conservation laws were merged into one – the law of
conservation of mass and energy.

 LAW OF CONSERVATION OF LINEAR MOMENTUM

 The product of force and time during which the force acts is called impulse.
 Linear momentum or momentum is the product of the mass of a moving object and its
velocity.
 Possessed by all moving objects, momentum is a vector quantity, with a direction the
same as that of the velocity. Its SI unit is kg., m/s.
 Momentum is best explained by considering an isolated closed system. An isolated
system does not have any external forces acting on it. A closed system is one where there
is no increase or decrease in the mass of the system.
 For an isolated closed system with two interacting bodies, the total momentum before
interaction is equal to the total momentum after interaction. This principle is called
conservation of momentum which applies to linear momentum and angular momentum.
 One of the most important applications of the law of conservation of linear momentum is
in the analysis of collisions, which may be elastic or inelastic.
 In an elastic collision, the total kinetic energy of the system is conserved which means
that the sum of the kinetic energies of the interacting bodies before and after collision are
equal.
 In an inelastic collision, some kinetic energy is changed into other forms of energy.

Ex. When a person walks on his skateboard in one direction, the skateboard moves in
the opposite direction.