an automobile is traveling north. can it have a velocity toward the north and at the same time have an acceleration toward the south? under what circumstances?
It is possible.
When an object is under free-fall, the direction of travel and the acceleration are both downwards.
When an object is thrown upwards, once it is in the air and ignoring air resistance, the only force acting on it is gravity. Even though it is moving upwards, the acceleration is still downwards (opposite to the direction of motion), this is why the object decellerates and eventually stops and change directions to downwards.
Oh, by the way, you would have been better off putting "school subject" as physics so the appropriate teacher will catch it faster.
According to the question, we have an automobile that is traveling north. Velocity is a vector quantity that includes both the magnitude (speed) and direction. Acceleration, on the other hand, is the rate at which the velocity of an object changes.
Now, let's consider the scenario where an automobile is traveling north but has an acceleration toward the south. In this case, the automobile's velocity and acceleration would have opposite directions.
To understand how this is possible, we need to first consider the concept of a coordinate system. In physics, we often use a Cartesian coordinate system, which has positive values in the north direction and negative values in the south direction.
Under what circumstances can this happen?
1. Deceleration: If the automobile was initially traveling south and has a large acceleration toward the north, it could gradually decelerate and ultimately reverse its direction to start moving north. During this transition, the velocity vector would be directed toward the north, while the acceleration vector would be directed toward the south.
2. Change in direction: If the automobile is moving north but makes a sharp turn and starts accelerating in the opposite direction (toward the south), the velocity and acceleration vectors would be in opposite directions momentarily.
It is important to note that while velocity and acceleration can have opposite directions, they are still separate quantities. Velocity represents the rate of change of position, while acceleration represents the rate of change of velocity.