Forums > General Discussion   Shooting the breeze...

How do you calculate the speed of something?

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Created by FormulaNova 1 month ago, 26 Jul 2024
FormulaNova
WA, 14625 posts
26 Jul 2024 7:21PM
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Now there's a question that sounds to have a strangely obvious answer... But I am bored, so why not ask stupid questions on Seabreeze.

Speed is a scalar quantity and velocity is a vector quantity, right?

Speed can be expressed in any distance/time units you want, too?

Now, if I were to travel for 100km from Perth and then return in 2 hours, my 'speed' would have been 100km per hour, right?

During that period of travel, my actual velocity could have varied up to "200kph" and down to "0kph". But my speed is still 100kph because I am measuring speed in kilometres and hours.

I never did physics in high school, but is that above correct?

Subsonic
WA, 3111 posts
26 Jul 2024 10:55PM
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Average, yes.

it's an application of two different quantities to work the other third quantity out.


if you want to know required speed, or what speed you've averaged, then it's distance divided by time.

D3
WA, 982 posts
27 Jul 2024 1:57AM
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Scientists measure speed by racing things against tortoises, duh

psychojoe
WA, 2100 posts
27 Jul 2024 5:13AM
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Last time I bought speed from Froth Goth it was mostly sugar.



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Forums > General Discussion   Shooting the breeze...


"How do you calculate the speed of something?" started by FormulaNova