< FHSST Physics < Rectilinear Motion
What is rectilinear motion?
Rectilinear motion means motion along a straight line. This is a useful topic to study for learning how to describe the movement of cars along a straight road or of trains along straight railway tracks. In this section you have only two directions to worry about: (1) along the direction of motion, and (2) opposite to the direction of motion.
To illustrate this imagine a train heading east.
If it is accelerating away from the station platform (P), the direction of acceleration is the same as the direction of the train's velocity — east. If it is braking the direction of acceleration is opposite to the direction of its motion, i.e. west.
This article is issued from Wikibooks. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.