Physics Chapter 2 Review
1.) Differentiate between a motion diagram and a particle model.
2.) What can you say about the time interval between each point or image?
3.) What is the point of choosing a coordinate system?
4.) What’s the difference between a vector and a scalar? (What does magnitude mean?) Give examples.
5.) What do we draw to represent vectors?
6.) What do you call the sum of two vectors? It goes from the tail of the first vector to the tip of the second.
7.) What is the name of the vector that represents a change in position?
8.) What’s the difference between distance and displacement?
9.) What does the slope of a position-time graph represent?
10.) What does the absolute value of the slope of a position-time graph represent?
11.) What is the difference between speed and velocity?
12.) What does the position-time graph of an object moving at a constant velocity look like?
13.) What is the equation for average velocity?
14.) If you are not given initial time, what do you assume it is?
15.) If you are not given initial displacement, what do you assume it is?
16.) Can you rearrange this equation to solve for final displacement?
17.) How can an object move around yet have a displacement of zero?
Answers
1.) A motion diagram features staggered images of a moving object, where the time interval between each
image is equal; a particle model reduces this to a series of dots.
2.) The time interval between each point or image is the same regardless of distance between them.
3.) A coordinate system provides a frame of reference to describe position.
4.) A vector has both magnitude (or size) and direction. A scalar has only magnitude.
Vector
Scalar
Displacement
Distance
Velocity
Speed
Acceleration
**
Force, Impulse
**
Momentum
**
**
Time
**
Temperature
**
Mass, Density
**
Volume, Area
**
Energy
**
Work, Power
5.) arrows
6.) resultant
7.) displacement
8.) Distance is a directionless measurement of how far an object has moved. Displacement has both distance
and direction relative to a coordinate system.
9.) average velocity
10.) average speed
11.) Speed is how fast an object is moving; velocity is how fast and in what direction.
12.) A straight line; note that an object at rest will have a flat line on its position-time graph
13.) v = Δd/Δt = (df − di)/(tf – ti)
14.) 0
15.) 0
16.) df = vt + di (where t is total time elapsed)
17.) If an object ends up where it began, its displacement is zero.