2.1: Introduction to Motion
- Page ID
- 472501
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Objects are in motion everywhere we look. Everything from a tennis game to a space-probe flyby of the planet Neptune involves motion. When you are resting, your heart moves blood through your veins. And even in inanimate objects, there is continuous motion in the vibrations of atoms and molecules. Questions about motion are interesting in and of themselves: How long will it take for a space probe to get to Mars? But an understanding of motion is also key to understanding other concepts in physics. An understanding of acceleration, for example, is crucial to the study of force.
Our formal study of physics begins with kinematics which is defined as the study of motion without considering its causes. The word “kinematics” comes from a Greek term meaning motion and is related to other English words such as “cinema” (movies) and “kinesiology” (the study of human motion). In one-dimensional kinematics we will study only the motion of a football, for example, without worrying about what forces cause or change its motion. Towards the end of the chapter we will also begin to introduce ideas about force to explain that motion. But this concept will be further expanded in later chapters.
Contributors
Curated from resources found in Introduction to Physics published by OpenStax.