Teachers Notes

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We are all familiar with the concept of distance and time. When we ask someone what speed are they travelling out they will respond by saying “30 miles per hour” for example. The “miles” refers to distance and the “hour” to the time. The “per” means ‘divide by’.

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Understanding graphs is an important tool for students to learn as introduces both the concept of rates of change as well as the significance of areas under graphs (which is explored in great depth at A Level). A Distance Time graph is a great way of introducing this as students understand velocity (speed).

A very important concept in Physics is the difference between distance and displacement. Distance is a magnitude only whereas displacement is both magnitude and direction.

 

When we consider velocity (displacement/time), displacement is a vector quantity and time is a scalar quantity, as velocity = displacement x 1/time,  the velocity is a vector quantity because a scalar multiplied by a vector is always a vector quantity.

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The SI Unit for displacement is 'metres' m

 

The SI Unit for time is 'seconds' s

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If you have any queries then please email us​​

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