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Edxcel Physics Unit 1 help?????

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Malak:

--- Quote from: mustafa09 on May 23, 2011, 05:03:20 pm ---acceleration is a vector so it can be negative or positve depending on direction like velocity
if you think about a velocity-time graph if the object changed direction the velocity become negative


--- End quote ---
That's because velocity is direction dependent but acceleration is rate of velocity so acceleration is negative if velocity is decreasing and positive if it increases.

This might help you understand:

--- Quote ---Acceleration is the change in an objects velocity. Acceleration is negative when the speed of an object is increasing in the opposite direction. So, if an object is starting to move west, increasing by 5m/s each second, it's acceleration could be written 5m/s2 west or -5m/s2 east. Furthermore, as previously stated, Acceleration is the change in velocity. This is to say that a decrease in velocity would also be acceleration (the word "deceleration" does not exist in physics as it does in English). So, if the object is slowing down, it will have a negative acceleration in the direction it is moving.

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mustafa09:
so if an object is slowing down in a stated direction it is negative acceleration, but if it slowed down in opposite direction would that make positive acceleration because negative and negative make positive if it was negative and travels in opposite direction so that make negative and negative which makes positive acceleration

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