ETYM Latin acceleratio: cf. French accélération.
1. The act of accelerating; increasing the speed; SYN. quickening, speedup.
2. Increase in velocity.
3. (Physics) A rate of change of velocity. The first derivative of velocity with respect to time. Units expressed in.
Rate of change of the velocity of a moving body. It is usually measured in feet per second per second (ft s-2) or meters per second per second (m s-2). Because velocity is a vector quantity (possessing both magnitude and direction) a body traveling at constant speed may be said to be accelerating if its direction of motion changes. According to Newton’s second law of motion, a body will accelerate only if it is acted upon by an unbalanced, or resultant, force.
Acceleration due to gravity is the acceleration of a body falling freely under the influence of the Earth’s gravitational field; it varies slightly at different latitudes and altitudes. The value adopted internationally for gravitational acceleration is 32.174 ft s-2/9.806 m s-2.
The average acceleration a of an object traveling in a straight line over a period of time t may be calculated using the formula.
A = change of velocity/t.
Or, where u is its initial velocity and v its final velocity.
A = (v - u)/t.
A negative answer shows that the object is slowing down (decelerating). See also equations of motion. + prikaži više