Physics Table of Contents 7/21/2023

2023

Kinematics
[Unit 2]

Abstract:
These are the notes for unit 2 of AS level physics
(kinematics)

Note:
These notes may not be completely accurate so please forgive
me for any oversights, please contact me via website chat or
email if you find any problems.

By Muhammad Sarem Tahir Kinematics Page 0

By Muhammad Sarem Tahir
Physics Table of Contents 7/21/2023

Table of Contents
Table of Contents...................................................... 1
Equations of Motion.................................................... 2
D D S V A [aka. Distance, Displace, Speed, Velocity, and Acceleration] ......... 2
Distance & Displacement ............................................ 2
Average Speed ...................................................... 2
Speed & Velocity ................................................... 3
Average Speed..................................................... 3
Average Velocity.................................................. 3
A Better Equation for Average Velocity............................ 3
Quick Definitions for Types of Velocity ............................ 4
Constant Velocity................................................. 4
Average Velocity.................................................. 4
Instantaneous Velocity............................................ 4
Finding Instantaneous Speed ........................................ 4
Describing Motion by Graphs ........................................ 5
Position-time Graphs.............................................. 5
Displacement-time & Velocity-time Graphs.......................... 5
Acceleration ....................................................... 6
Instantaneous Acceleration........................................ 6
Examples of Acceleration Values................................... 7
Uniformly Accelerated Motion...................................... 7
Free fall Acceleration............................................ 8
Graphs of Kinematic Equations.................................... 10
Displacement for Non-Uniform Acceleration........................ 11
2 Dimensional Motion under Constant Force........................ 11
Sources (and Resources) Used.......................................... 14

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023

Equations of Motion
D D S V A
[aka. Distance, Displace, Speed, Velocity, and Acceleration]

Distance & Displacement

Distance is the length along the actual path travelled from the starting
point to the finishing point.
Displacement is the change of position or the length travelled in a
straight line in a specified direction from the starting to the
finishing point.

The figure shows an orange path taken by the object, the length of this
path is the distance travelled.
The blue line or arrow shows the distance between the two points and is
the displacement.

Average Speed
Average speed is the distance moved along a path divided by the time
taken:
𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ
𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 =
𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛
The unit of speed is meters per second or ms-1.

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
The table below shows a bunch of values of speed which you should know:
Name Value (ms-1) Name Value (ms-1)
Light 3 × 108
Snail 1 × 10-3
Electrons around Typical speed of
2.2 × 106 22
Nucleus car (80 kph)
Jet airliner 2.5 × 102 Walking Speed 1.5
Earth around Sun 3 × 104 Sprinter 1 × 101
Note that speed only has meaning if it is quoted relative to a fixed
reference and in most cases, this reference is the surface of the Earth.
Now, the Earth isn’t fixed because it’s orbiting the sun but we take it
as fixed anyways.

Speed & Velocity

Normally, we’d say that “speed” and “velocity” are the same but that’s
not true in physics.
In physics, there is one BIG difference between the two is that velocity
is a vector quantity and speed is a scalar quantity.
We already know that speed uses distance unlike velocity which uses
displacement.
To put this into perspective, let’s first look at the formulas for
average speed and average velocity:
Average Speed Average Velocity
𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡
𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 = 𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑉𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 =
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛
As you can see, speed uses distance and velocity uses displacement.
The average speed of an object might not be the same as the average
velocity due to the different values of distance and displacement (we
talked about it before).
A Better Equation for Average Velocity
The previously stated word equation for average velocity was to sort of
explain the difference between speed and velocity.
However, the formula we should memorise is:
Symbol Quantity
𝒗 Velocity
∆𝑥
𝑣̅ = 𝒙 Displacement
∆𝑡 Time
𝒕

Note: The little “-” on top of v means “average” and “∆” means “change in” so “∆x”
means “change in displacement”

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023

Quick Definitions for Types of Velocity

Constant Velocity Average Velocity Instantaneous Velocity
The speed of an object The speed calculated The speed calculated
travelling at constant for an object for an object at a
speed would be found travelling at specific moment in
using this formula and different speeds would time is called the
would be exact. give us an average and “instantaneous speed”;
(v=d/t) is therefore the basically, it is the
“average speed”. speed at a point.

Finding Instantaneous Speed

When we have a curve on the graph, it means the velocity is
changing.
To get the instantaneous velocity for that, we need to
use tangents.
So, let’s say we have a graph and we want to get the
instantaneous velocity at point X (check right).
We can simply draw a tangent and then get the gradient
like the figure on the right (under the question).

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Describing Motion by Graphs
Position-time Graphs
Average
Section Description
Velocity
Starting Point of the
O N/A
particle.
Straight line meaning the
particle is covering equal 𝑥1 − 0
O to A
distances in equal periods 𝑡1 − 0
(uniform velocity).
Particle is slowing down
because the distances 𝑥2 − 𝑥1
A to B
travelled in equal periods 𝑡2 − 𝑡1
are decreasing.
Particle is at rest but only
B 0
for a moment
Particle is moving back 𝑥3 − 𝑥2
B to C towards the origin (shown by
negative values) 𝑡3 − 𝑡2

Displacement-time & Velocity-time Graphs

As the titles suggest, a displacement-time graph is a graph which has
the displacement on the y-axis and the time on the x-axis.
Velocity-time graphs have velocity on the y-axis and time on the x-axis.
Now, the thing we need to know is how we can create a velocity-time
graph using the displacement-time graph.
Using Displacement-time Graph to get Velocity-time Graph
Let’s say we have a car which has the following displacement-time graph
for a trip:

Section Description
Distances travelled in equal distances are progressively
O to A
increasing (acceleration).
Distances travelled in equal time intervals are progressively
A to B
decreasing (deceleration).
B No change in position (at rest).

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023

To get the velocity-time graph, we first draw tangents to each curve

present:

The reason we have the graph like

To get the specific values of the this is because from the first
velocity, we can simply calculate tangent (OA), we accelerate which
the gradients of both tangents. gives us a positive slope.
However, the second tangent (AB) is
When we plot these tangents, we get when the car decelerates and
the image shown on the right. therefore a negative slope.

Acceleration
Acceleration is a measure of the rate at which the velocity of an
object/particle is changing.
The formula for average acceleration is:
𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑉𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 ∆𝑣
𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 𝑜𝑟 𝑎 =
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 ∆𝑡
The unit of acceleration is ms-2 and is calculated by dividing the
velocity (ms-1) with the unit of time (s) which gives us ms-2.
Instantaneous Acceleration
To get the instantaneous acceleration, we take extremely small time
intervals.
We also need the direction along with the magnitude as acceleration is a
vector quantity.
A particle moving with uniform velocity has no acceleration meaning that
the magnitude and direction of the particle do not change with time.
We can find the acceleration of a particle using its velocity-time
graph, this is done by drawing a tangent at the curve and finding the
slope of it. (This method)

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Examples of Acceleration Values
Name Value (ms-2) Name Value (ms-2)
Due to circular
Due to circular
motion of
9×1026 motion of Earth 6×10-5
electrons around
around Sun
nucleus
Car Crash 1×103 Family Car 2
At Equator, due Free fall on
10
to rotation of 3×10-3 Earth
Earth Free fall on Moon 2

Uniformly Accelerated Motion

Using displacement, velocity, and acceleration, we can derive a few
equations called the “kinematic equations”.

Equation 1: Equation 2: Equation 3:

𝑣 = 𝑢 + 𝑎𝑡 1 1
𝑠 = 𝑢𝑡 + 𝑎𝑡 2 𝑠 = 𝑣𝑡 = 𝑎𝑡 2
2 2
Equation 4: Equation 5:
𝑣 2 = 𝑢2 + 2𝑎𝑠 (𝑢 + 𝑣)𝑡
𝑠=
2
Deriving the Equations:
For the first equation, imagine an object moving in a line with constant
acceleration (𝑎).
(𝑣−𝑢)
We use the formula 𝑎 = which is rearranged to make:
𝑡

𝑣 = 𝑢 + 𝑎𝑡
For the second equation, we take the formula of average velocity and
then rearrange it to make displacement (𝑠) the subject:
𝑠 = 𝑣̅ 𝑡
When we write the average velocity in terms of the initial & final
velocities we get:
𝑢+𝑣
𝑣̅ =
2
Now we replace the v with equation 1:
(𝑢 + 𝑢 + 𝑎𝑡) 𝑎𝑡
𝑣̅ = =𝑢+
2 2
We now replace the “𝑣̅ ” in 𝑠 = 𝑣̅ 𝑡 which gives us the following:
𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑡 2
𝑠 = 𝑡 (𝑢 + ) = 𝑢𝑡 +
2 2

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
The third equation is the equation which relates final velocity, initial
velocity, and acceleration.
To get it, we rearrange the formula for acceleration:
(𝑣 − 𝑢)
𝑡=
𝑎
We then replace t in equation 2 with the rearranged formula:
(𝑣 − 𝑢)2
𝑣−𝑢 𝑎 ( )
𝑎2
𝑠 = 𝑢( )+
𝑎 2
We then multiply both sides with 2𝑎 and expand the terms:
2𝑎𝑠 = 2𝑢𝑣 − 2𝑢2 + 𝑣 2 − 2𝑢𝑣 + 𝑢2
Free fall Acceleration
It is the acceleration of any object attracted to the Earth as a result
of being in its gravitational field.
When an object is released on Earth, it is attracted to its centre due
to the force of gravity.
The object is attracted to the centre and therefore falls downwards
given that no external forces act on it.
It is represented by “𝑔” and has the value of 9.81 ms-2.
Experiment for getting free fall acceleration
There are numerous ways of determining the acceleration of free fall.
The Method
We will release a ball from the electromagnet (on
top) this causes the ball to fall as it is
affected by gravity.
When the ball passes through the first light gate,
an electric timer is turned on and then turned off
when the second is passed.
We can then use the formula for acceleration to
calculate the acceleration due to free fall:
(𝑣 − 𝑢)
𝑎=
𝑡
Obviously we don’t have speed but we can get final
velocity using 𝑣 = 𝑑⁄𝑡 and take initial velocity as
0.

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Our Setup

[Stroboscope from the textbook]

The Process:
A steel ball is released from an electromagnet and falls under gravity.
The video camera is used to produce a film of the ball’s fall and the
stroboscope is used to flash light at a selected frequency.
The recording shows the position of the ball at regular time intervals
along with the distance it has travelled (shown by meter rule).
Calculation:
First, we must decide the formula we use, in this case it will be:
1
𝑠 = 𝑎𝑡 2
2
This is because we have values for time and displacement which leaves
acceleration.
Given that the stroboscope was used at a frequency of 20 Hz and the time
1
intervals were calculated using 𝑇 = 𝑓, we can plot a displacement (s)
against t2.
The start time is going to be 0 as shown in the first image of the ball.
This graph gives us a gradient of 0.5𝑎 which we can use to get 𝑔.
Note: The values shown here are not the same as the figures

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Graphs of Kinematic Equations

This is when an object moves in a This is a velocity-time graph for

straight line with constant an object moving in a straight line
velocity meaning that it covers with constant acceleration, this
equal distances in equal time means that the object’s velocity
intervals. increases by equal amounts in equal
time intervals.
The displacement-time graph above
shows the motion meaning that the In this case, the object starts at
gradient is the velocity. a velocity of 𝑢 at time t = 0.
In this graph, the gradient will be Here, the gradient is acceleration
the average velocity and and the area under the
instantaneous velocity as the line slope/gradient is the displacement
is straight (not curved). of the object.
Here, the equation is 𝑥 = 𝑣𝑡. The equation here is 𝑣 = 𝑢 + 𝑎𝑡.

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023

Using the velocity-time graph, we We can split the graph and then
can make a displacement-time get the areas of the individual
graph. sections, the displacement at a
certain time is then just the sum
We do this by calculating the
of the areas until the time.
area between the graph and the t-
axis succession values of t. The equation which describes the
velocity-time graph is:
Look at the graph on the right.
𝑠 = 𝑢𝑡 + 1⁄2 𝑎𝑡 2

Displacement for Non-Uniform Acceleration

When acceleration is uniform/constant, everything is easier because the
graphs are also linear.
When the acceleration is changing, it gives us a curved velocity time
graph.
The way to get the displacement for this is to simply make rectangles of
same sizes and get their areas giving us a good estimate of the area.
2 Dimensional Motion under Constant Force
All of the graphs we’ve seen till now
were of an object moving in a straight
line, which is called “One Dimensional
Motion”.
2 dimensional motion is when the object
moves on a plane rather than a single
line.

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Projectile Motion
Think of an object like a ball thrown at an angle by someone, the ball
experiences a constant force which causes it to go in the direction it
was thrown in:

Understanding Projectile Motion:

Let’s think of an object which is sent in the horizontal direction and
is subject to gravity (ignore air resistance).

Vertical Motion: Horizontal Motion:

Let’s first take a look at the Here, the acceleration is zero
vertical motion of the object. meaning that quantity 𝑣ℎ stays the
same as the initial velocity (𝑢).
We know that the object has an
acceleration of 𝑔 (gravity). Note: 𝒗𝒉 means the velocity on the x-axis

Using 𝑣 = 𝑢 + 𝑎𝑡, the quantity 𝑣𝑦 , at At time 𝑡, the horizontal

time 𝑡 is given by the equation: displacement 𝑥 is given by the
formula:
𝑣𝑦 = 𝑔𝑡
𝑥 = 𝑢𝑥 𝑡
Note: 𝒗𝒚 means the velocity on the y-axis
Note: 𝒖𝒙 means the initial velocity on the
Also, at time 𝑡, the vertical x-axis
displacement 𝑦 is given by the
formula:
1
𝑦 = 𝑔𝑡 2
2

Finding the Velocity using the Components

To find the velocity of the object at any
time 𝑡, we must vectorially add the 𝑣𝑥 and 𝑣𝑦
components.
The resulting vector is the direction of motion
of the object.
The curve which is traced out by an object
subjected to a constant force in one direction
is a parabola (right).

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Physics Equations of Motion 7/21/2023
Other Cases for Projectile Motion:
If an object is sent with velocity (𝑢) at an
angle (𝜃) on the horizontal axis similar to
the graph on the right.
The analysis of motion is similar to the
example previously with the difference being
that the initial y-component is:
𝑦 = 𝑢 sin 𝜃

Let’s look at another figure; here we have

an object projected with velocity (𝑢) at
an angle (𝜃) to the horizontal axis.
The range (𝑅) is the distance from the
point of projection to the point the
object reaches the ground again.
The formula of 𝑅 is given by:
(𝑢2 sin 2𝜃)
𝑅=
𝑔

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Physics Sources (and Resources) Used 7/21/2023

Sources (and Resources) Used

Most of the information has come from the AS & A Level Physics Student
Book by Hodder Education.
Other resources/tools have also been used and are listed below:

Name Link Use

Save My Exams LINK Mainly understanding
concepts to make them
ZNotes LINK simpler
Designing of figures
Canva LINK
and diagrams
GIMP 2.10.30 LINK Diagrams & Figures
Geogebra LINK Vector diagrams
AS/A Level Syllabus LINK Checking syllabus
Word 2010 LINK Creating the notes
Word 365 LINK Exporting and stuff

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Physics Sources (and Resources) Used 7/21/2023
2023

Kinematics
Physics

Final Words
I hope this resource was useful for you!
This resource is just one of the many resources I have made
till now.
You can find all the other resources at my website.
This includes resources such as revision notes, topical past
papers, and many other helpful resources.

I also work on other projects such as games, art, game assets,

etc.!

By Muhammad Sarem Tahir Kinematics Page 15