Chapter 2

Motion Along a
Straight Line
Modifications by
PowerPoint® Lectures for
University Physics, Thirteenth Edition
Mike Brotherton
– Hugh D. Young and Roger A. Freedman

Lectures by Wayne Anderson

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education Inc.
 Goals for Chapter 2
• To describe straight-line motion in terms of velocity and
acceleration
• To distinguish between average and instantaneous velocity
and average and instantaneous acceleration
• To interpret graphs of position versus time, velocity versus
time, and acceleration versus time for straight-line motion
• To understand straight-line motion with constant
acceleration
• To examine freely falling bodies
• To analyze straight-line motion when the acceleration is
not constant
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 Introduction
• Kinematics is the study of motion.
• Velocity and acceleration are important physical
quantities.
• A bungee jumper speeds up during the first part of his
fall and then slows to a halt.

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Displacement, time, and average velocity—Figure 2.1
• A particle moving along the x-axis has a coordinate x.
• The change in the particle’s coordinate is x = x2  x1.
• The average x-velocity of the particle is vav-x = x/t.
• Figure 2.1 illustrates how these quantities are related.

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 Negative velocity
• The average x-velocity is negative during a time interval if
the particle moves in the negative x-direction for that time
interval. Figure 2.2 illustrates this situation.

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A position-time graph—Figure 2.3
• A position-time graph (an x-t graph) shows the particle’s
position x as a function of time t.
• Figure 2.3 shows how the average x-velocity is related to the
slope of an x-t graph.

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Instantaneous velocity—Figure 2.4

• The instantaneous velocity is the velocity at a

specific instant of time or specific point along the
path and is given by vx = dx/dt.
• The average speed is not the magnitude of the
average velocity!

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 Average and instantaneous velocities
• In Example 2.1, the cheetah’s instantaneous velocity
increases with time. (Follow Example 2.1)

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 Finding velocity on an x-t graph
• At any point on an x-t graph, the instantaneous x-
velocity is equal to the slope of the tangent to the
curve at that point.

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 Motion diagrams
• A motion diagram shows the position of a particle at
various instants, and arrows represent its velocity at each
instant.
• Figure 2.8 shows the x-t graph and the motion diagram for a
moving particle.

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 Average vs. instantaneous acceleration
• Acceleration describes the rate of change of velocity with time.
• The average x-acceleration is aav-x = vx/t.
•The instantaneous acceleration is ax = dvx/dt.

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 A vx-t graph and a motion diagram

• Figure 2.13 shows the vx-t graph and the motion diagram
for a particle.

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 An x-t graph and a motion diagram

• Figure 2.14 shows the x-t graph and the motion diagram
for a particle.

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Motion with constant acceleration—Figures 2.15 and 2.17

• For a particle with constant acceleration, the velocity

changes at the same rate throughout the motion.

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The Moving Man Simulation

• There is a link to a simulation on the course

webpage. If you have any concerns or confusion
about these plots of motion vs. time, or just want
more practice, please play around with it (learning
can be fun!).

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The equations of motion with constant acceleration

• The four equations shown to vx = v0x + axt

the right apply to any straight- x = x0 + v0xt + 12 axt 2
line motion with constant
acceleration ax. 2 + 2a æç x - x ö÷
vx2 = v0x x è 0 ø

• We can work this out with a x - x0 =

v0x + vx ö÷
æ
ç
t
ç
little integral calculus, but it’s çè 2 ÷÷ø

also possible to do with just

algebra for this specific case.

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Freely falling bodies
• Free fall is the motion of
an object under the
influence of only gravity.
• In the figure, a strobe
light flashes with equal
time intervals between
flashes.
• The velocity change is
the same in each time
interval, so the
acceleration is constant.

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A freely falling coin
• Aristotle thought that heavy
bodies fall faster than light
ones, but Galileo showed that
all bodies fall at the same rate.
• If there is no air resistance, the
downward acceleration of any
freely falling object is g = 9.8
m/s2 = 32 ft/s2.
• Follow Example 2.6 for a coin
dropped from the Leaning
Tower of Pisa.

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Up-and-down motion in free fall

• An object is in free
fall even when it is
moving upward.

• Instead of a ball,
let’s pretend it’s
something more
interesting like a
blood-filled
pumpkin or a human
heart.
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 Is the acceleration zero at the highest point?—Figure 2.25

• The vertical
velocity, but not
the acceleration,
is zero at the
highest point.

Think about our hammer vs. feather moon video. How

could you use the information there to calculate the
acceleration due to the moon’s surface gravity?
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Velocity and position by integration
• The acceleration of a car is not always constant.
• The motion may be integrated over many small time intervals to
t t
give vx  v 
ox 0 x
a dt and x  x 
0 0 x
v dt.

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