{"id":307,"date":"2018-08-07T20:32:29","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T20:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/?post_type=chapter&p=307"},"modified":"2019-07-17T15:13:14","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:13:14","slug":"putting-it-together-average-kinematics","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/chapter\/putting-it-together-average-kinematics\/","title":{"raw":"Putting It Together: Average Kinematics","rendered":"Putting It Together: Average Kinematics"},"content":{"raw":"So why are the displacement, the average velocity, and the average acceleration useful?\u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it always be better to deal with the instantaneous quantities if we can?\u00a0 Even if we ignore situations where we simply don\u2019t know how an object is moving at all points in time, the fact is that there are many situations where the object\u2019s motion is complicated enough that it is in our interest to look for an alternative to the instantaneous position, velocity, and acceleration to describe an object\u2019s motion. \u00a0Though our average kinematic quantities clearly don\u2019t contain as much information as we would have if we knew the instantaneous velocity or acceleration at all points in time, there are many questions we could ask where providing the average answer is \u201cgood enough\u201d to answer the question.\u00a0 As we will see as we continue to move through the course, calculating the average value often lets us ignore layers of complication in a problem that make the math required to solve it much more difficult but doesn\u2019t meaningfully change the final answer.","rendered":"

So why are the displacement, the average velocity, and the average acceleration useful?\u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it always be better to deal with the instantaneous quantities if we can?\u00a0 Even if we ignore situations where we simply don\u2019t know how an object is moving at all points in time, the fact is that there are many situations where the object\u2019s motion is complicated enough that it is in our interest to look for an alternative to the instantaneous position, velocity, and acceleration to describe an object\u2019s motion. \u00a0Though our average kinematic quantities clearly don\u2019t contain as much information as we would have if we knew the instantaneous velocity or acceleration at all points in time, there are many questions we could ask where providing the average answer is \u201cgood enough\u201d to answer the question.\u00a0 As we will see as we continue to move through the course, calculating the average value often lets us ignore layers of complication in a problem that make the math required to solve it much more difficult but doesn\u2019t meaningfully change the final answer.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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