Acceleration

Did you know a jet can be traveling at the speed of sound and not be accelerating? While the speed of
sound is extremely fast, acceleration occurs only if the jet is speeding up or slowing down. Let's take a
look at a quick example to understand the difference between speed and acceleration.
When I take off in my car, I accelerate until I achieve my maximum speed. I cease to accelerate when I
obtain a constant speed. The law states that I can drive at a maximum speed of 65 miles per hour on a
highway in Oregon. The law doesn't put a restriction on my acceleration. If I floor the accelerator, I may
be able to achieve 65 miles per hour in about 7 seconds. If I go easy on my minivan, it will take me
closer to 14 seconds to achieve the same speed.
By flooring the accelerator, I decrease the time it takes to change my speed from 0 to 65 miles per hour.
In other words, my acceleration is greater. The entire time my speed is increasing from 0 to 65 miles per
hour, I am accelerating. The moment I achieve 65 miles per hour and ease up on the gas to keep a
constant speed, I am no longer accelerating.

Definition Of Acceleration
Before we can talk about acceleration, we need to understand velocity which is the rate that an object
moves from one place to another. Velocity is a vector quantity, which means it has both a magnitude,
called speed, and a direction.
If I were in my car traveling 30 miles per hour to the north, the magnitude of my velocity, or speed, would
be 30 miles per hour and my direction would be north. If I changed my speed or if I changed my
direction, then I would experience a change in my velocity. This is where acceleration comes into play.
Acceleration, also a vector quantity, is the rate at which an object changes its velocity. The most
obvious way that I could accelerate would be to change my speed from say 30 miles per hour to 40
miles per hour. However, I would also experience acceleration if I changed direction without changing
my speed, like driving around a bend in the road at a constant 30 miles per hour. In a large bend where
my direction was changing slowly, I would experience a lower acceleration than if I were to take a sharp
turn, since my direction would change more rapidly. We can feel the difference in acceleration when we
go around a corner in a car as a sensation that we're being pulled or pushed to one side or the other.

Example Of Acceleration
Consider a person riding a bike. Let's say that they start out from rest and reach a speed of 10 meters
per second by 1 second, 15 meters per second by 2 seconds and 18 meters per second after 3
seconds. We know that the bike accelerated for the entire 3 seconds since the velocity kept increasing,
but was the acceleration the same for each time period? To find out, we'll need to use the change in
velocity over each period of time to calculate the average acceleration.

Calculating Average Acceleration

Now that we understand the concept of acceleration, the formula for calculating acceleration will make
sense and be easier to remember. The average acceleration of an object can be calculated using the
following equation:
a = (vf - vi) / (tf - ti)

where a = average acceleration, vf = final velocity, vi = initial velocity, tf = final time and ti = initial time. In
other words, acceleration equals the change in velocity divided by the change in time. Let's plug in
some numbers from our bike example. We can calculate the average acceleration of the bike during the
first second.
Recall the formula for acceleration a = (vf - vi) / (tf - ti)
a = (10 m/sec - 0 m/sec) / (1 sec - 0 sec)
a = (10 m/sec) / (1 sec)
a = 10 (m/sec)/sec
a = 10 m/(sec*sec)
a = 10 m/sec^2

If a Formula 1 cars starting velocity is 0m/s (metres per second)

And its final velocity is 27m/s
The difference is 27m/s
If this change happened in 3seconds
Acceleration = 27 / 3
Acceleration = 9m/s/s