Like if a car starts at rest and moves at 4m/s^2 for 10seconds, what does that mean?
Does it mean the car is exponentially increasing in speed? Can someone draw it out for me second by second?
Edit:
***I have a follow up question to several of y’all’s responses in how the concept of acceleration relates to one of the big kinematics equations as well. That’s one of the big discrepancies I’m having trouble understanding***
In: 9
It’s a measure of change in speed over time.
It means that every second, the speed increases by 4 m/s.
At t=0s, car speed is 0 m/s
at t=1s the speed is 4 m/s
at t=2s speed is 8 m/s
at t=3s speed is 12 m/s
…
at t=10s speed will be 40 m/s
If the car is not accelerating (ie. speed is constant) then the speed will be the same at every point in time.
Think of it this way, speed is meters per second, ie the change in distance (m – unit of distance) over time (s).
Acceleration is change in speed (m/s – unit of speed) over time (s), so it’s (m/s)/s which then gets shortened to m/s^2
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