Acceleration and Velocity

Acceleration is a vector quantity that is defined as the rate at which an object changes its velocity. An object is accelerating if it is changing its velocity. Acceleration has to do with changing how fast an object is moving. If an object is not changing its velocity, then the object is not accelerating. Velocity is a vector quantity that refers to "the rate at which an object changes its position." An example is a person moving rapidly - one step forward and one step back - always returning to the original starting position, it would result in a zero velocity, because the person always returns to the original position, the motion would never result in a change in position. Since velocity is defined as the rate at which the position changes, this motion results in zero velocity. If a person in motion wishes to maximize their velocity, then that person must make every effort to maximize the amount that they are displaced from their original position. Every step must go into moving that person further from where he or she started. For certain, the person should never change directions and begin to return to the starting position. This video uses examples to show how this information relates to the equations used to find them.