When discussing kinetic energy, why does Prof. Anderson refer to "v" as "speed" instead of "velocity"?Group of answer choiceshe does not do thisbecause we're only using the magnitude of velocity here, which is "speed"he is making an error herebecause the object is speeding up
Question
When discussing kinetic energy, why does Prof. Anderson refer to "v" as "speed" instead of "velocity"?Group of answer choiceshe does not do thisbecause we're only using the magnitude of velocity here, which is "speed"he is making an error herebecause the object is speeding up
Solution
The reason Prof. Anderson refers to "v" as "speed" instead of "velocity" when discussing kinetic energy is because we're only using the magnitude of velocity here, which is "speed". In physics, velocity is a vector quantity that refers to "the rate at which an object changes its position", implying direction. On the other hand, speed, a scalar quantity, refers to "how fast an object is moving" without considering the direction. In the formula for kinetic energy, 1/2 mv^2, we are interested in the magnitude of the velocity (the speed) and not its direction.
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