Acceleration

Technicalsciencesystems

Etymology

From Latin "accelerare" — "ad" (toward) plus "celer" (swift). The everyday sense is speeding up, but physics widened it to any change in velocity, braking and turning included.

  1. noun · /ak-sel-er-AY-shun/

    Any change in velocity — speeding up, slowing down, or changing direction.

    What it names

    The thing you actually feel in a moving vehicle: not motion itself, but the change in motion, which is what a force produces.

    Example

    Braking is acceleration too — the seatbelt bites because you are decelerating hard.

    Related idea

    Velocity is your state of motion; acceleration is the rate it changes. You sit comfortably at 500 mph cruising (constant velocity) but get thrown back on takeoff (acceleration).

See also

ForceMomentum (physics)VectorVelocity