1. The city school PHYSICS Saqib javeed April12,2011

2. The Meaning of Slope for a v-t Graph As discussed in the previous part of Lesson 4, the shape of a velocity vs. time graph reveals pertinent information about an object's acceleration. For example, if the acceleration is zero, then the velocity-time graph is a horizontal line (i.e., the slope is zero). If the acceleration is positive, then the line is an upward sloping line (i.e., the slope.

3. Consider a car moving with a constant velocity of +10 m/s. A car moving with a constant velocity has an acceleration of 0 m/s/s. The velocity-time data and graph would look like the graph below. Note that the line on the graph is horizontal. That is the slope of the line is 0 m/s/s. It is obvious that in this case the slope of the line (0 m/s/s) is the same as the acceleration (0 m/s/s) of the car.

5. So in this case, the slope of the line is equal to the acceleration of the velocity- time graph. Now we will examine a few other graphs to see if this is a principle which is true of all velocity vs. time graphs.

7. The velocity-time data for this motion show that the car has an acceleration value of 10 m/s/s. The graph of this velocity-time data would look like the graph below. Note that the line on the graph is diagonal - that is, it has a slope. The slope of the line can be calculated as 10 m/s/s. It is obvious once again that the slope of the line (10 m/s/s) is the same as the acceleration (10 m/s/s) of the car.