A car travels in a straight line. The driver applies the brakes and comes to an abrupt stop. Durning braking, what happens to the velocity and acceleration vectors?
A. They point opposite directions.
B. They point in the same direction.
C. They are at right angles to each other.
D. They create centripetal acceleration?
During braking, the velocity and acceleration vectors of the car can change depending on certain factors. Let's discuss the general scenario assuming ideal conditions and ignoring external forces like air resistance.
When the driver applies the brakes, the main goal is to decrease the car's velocity and bring it to a stop. Ideally, the velocity vector should decrease in magnitude and eventually become zero when the car comes to a complete stop.
The acceleration vector, on the other hand, can vary depending on whether the car is accelerating or decelerating. During normal driving, the car's acceleration vector points in the same direction as its velocity vector since it is an accelerating motion. However, during braking, the car's acceleration vector opposes the direction of motion. This is known as deceleration or negative acceleration.
To visually understand this, imagine a car traveling in the positive x-direction (rightwards) and its velocity vector pointing in the same direction. When the driver applies the brakes, the acceleration vector would point in the negative x-direction (leftwards). This decelerating force causes the velocity vector to decrease in magnitude until it becomes zero, indicating that the car has stopped.
To summarize, during braking, the velocity vector decreases until it reaches zero, while the acceleration vector acts opposite to the direction of motion.