Understanding How Things Move

Kinematics is the study of how objects move, focusing on concepts like displacement, velocity, and acceleration. Unlike dynamics, kinematics doesn’t worry about what causes the motion—just describes it!

Key Ideas

• Displacement is the straight-line distance and direction from start to finish.
• Velocity is speed in a particular direction.
• Acceleration is how quickly velocity changes.

The basic kinematic equations help you predict where and how fast things go when they start, stop, or change speed.

Visualizing Motion

Motion can be shown using graphs—position vs. time, velocity vs. time, and so on. Understanding how to read these graphs is a big part of kinematics.

Real-World Importance

Kinematics helps you figure out how long it takes you to run across a soccer field, how fast a car needs to go to beat a yellow light, or where a thrown ball will land.