CHAPTER 10

10.1 Measuring Motion

What is speed?
The speed of an object tells you how fast or slow it is moving.
Unit : km/h or m/s

Distance and time

You can find the average speed of an object if you know:

 the distance travelled

 the time taken to travel that distance

Distance travelled
Average speed =
Time taken
Question : Calculate the average speed of a runner who runs 100 m in 10 s.

Calculating speed
𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
Speed =
𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞
Question : The distance travelled is 200 m and the time taken is 25 s.

THINK THINK?
2) A red car travels 400 m in 20 s. A blue car
travels 660 m in 30 s. Which car has the
1) A car travels 100 m in 5 s. What is the
greater average speed?
average speed?
 10.2 Speed check
Speed Camera
Speed cameras are used to find out if a motorist is travelling faster than the speed limit for the
road. The camera takes two photographs of the vehicle. These can be:

 a certain time apart, so that the distance travelled in that time can be worked out, or
 a certain distance apart, so that the time taken to travel from one road marking to the next
can be worked out

Light gates
In the laboratory, you can use light gates to measure the speed of moving object.

Each light gate has an invisible beam of infrared light. When anything
breaks the beam, the light gate sends a pulse of electricity to the timer.

 ONE light gate is connected to the START terminal of an

electronic timer

 The other light gate is connected to the STOP terminal

Light gates are useful because they can measure very short time
intervals – less than a second.Light gates can be connected to a
computer instead a timer. Then the computer can calculate the speed of
the moving object. Before it can do this, you need to tell it the
distance between the two light gates.
 Distance

10.3 Speed calculations

Speed Time

1. Find speed when, distance is 142 km and 2. Find out the distance covered when, speed is
time is 2 hours. 960 km/hour and time is 1 hour 50 minutes.

3. Determine the time taken when, distance is 4. If distance travelled by a train is 495 km in
7150 km and speed is 780 km/hr. 4 hours 30 minutes, what is its speed?

5. A cyclist covers 950 m in 5 minutes. Find his 6. The speed of the train is 72 km per hour. Find
speed in km/ hour. its speed in metre per second.

7. Express the speed of 60 m per minute in km 8. A man runs at the speed of 10 km/hr. How
per hour. much time will he take to cover 750 metres?

9. Aaron ran 500 metre in 100 Seconds. Find 10. A cyclist travels at a speed of 20 km/hour.
the speed in km per hour. How far will he travels in 50 minutes?
 10.4 Patterns of Movement
Constant speed, changing speed
Distance-time graphs
A distance-time graph is a useful way to represent the motion of an object. It shows how the
distance moved from a starting point changes over time.

In a distance-time graph:

 distance travelled is plotted on the vertical (y) axis

 time taken is plotted on the horizontal (x) axis
The gradient of the line is equal to the speed. This means that the line is:

 horizontal for a stationary object (because the distance stays the same)
 a straight diagonal for an object moving at a constant speed
The steeper the line, the greater the gradient and the greater the speed.
 Red car

Distance Distance

blue car

Time
This shows that object’s distance
from the starting point increases a
steading rate. It is travelling equal
distances in equal times.
Time
The red car is going faster than the
blue one. Its graph line slopes
upwards more steeply, because it
travels a greater distances in each
second.

When an object is stationary, the line on the graph is horizontal. When an object is moving at a steady
speed in a straight line, the line on the graph is straight but sloped.

The purple line is steeper than the green line because the purple line represents an object which is
moving more quickly.
10.5 Distance/time graphs
Drawing Distance-time graphs
The graph shows the movement of a runner in a race.

PRACTICE