ACCELERATION

Acceleration is a vector quantity that tells us the rate in change in velocity over time. So if you are moving at one velocity (v1) and some time later you are moving at a different velocity (v2) then v2-v1/time would be equal to your acceleration. Because it is over a time period we say that this is our average acceleration. The velocity over those 10 seconds could have increased and decreased multiple times but for average acceleration all we care about is the beginning point and the end point and the time period.

Because acceleration is a vector there is a direction associated with the acceleration. This applies especially when an acceleration is happening in only one direction but a body is moving in two directions. For example, if a car has a velocity of (12, 4)m/s and it has an acceleration of (0,2)m/s then the acceleration is only going to change the y component of the velocity (in this case the 4 in the (12,4) m/s).

In the following video we introduce the idea of acceleration and two of the three equations of motion.