When a Car Accelerates: Understanding the Quantities Involved

What happens when a car accelerates uniformly from rest?

When a car accelerates uniformly from rest, which of these quantities increases with time?

Answer:

When a car accelerates uniformly from rest, the quantity that increases with time is the car's velocity. Uniform acceleration means that the car's speed increases by a constant amount for each unit of time.

When a car accelerates uniformly from rest, it means that the car's speed increases at a steady rate, starting from zero velocity (rest) and gaining speed consistently over time. This process involves the car's acceleration, velocity, displacement, and time.

The key quantity that increases with time in this scenario is the car's velocity. As acceleration occurs, the car's speed grows incrementally with each passing moment. This can be visually represented by a graph showing velocity against time, where the line slopes upwards as velocity increases steadily.

On the other hand, the car's displacement, representing the change in position, also increases with time. Initially, the displacement rises rapidly as the car gains speed. However, as time progresses, the rate at which displacement changes slows down. This is because the car's speed remains constant once the acceleration phase is completed.

Other related quantities include the car's acceleration, which remains constant during uniform acceleration. Additionally, the time taken for the car to reach a certain velocity or cover a specific distance decreases as the car accelerates, reflecting the efficiency of uniform acceleration in reducing the time required to achieve higher speeds.

← Efficiency of a machine Why can you hear a spaceship explosion in a science fiction movie →