Average acceleration question?

Question

Average acceleration question?

At one instant a bicyclist is 40.0m due east of a park's flagpole, going due south with a speed of 10.0m/s. Then 30.0s later, the cyclist is 40.0m due north of the flagpole, going due east with a speed of 10.0 m/s. For the cyclist in the 30.0s interval, what are the (a) magnitude and (b) direction of the displacement, the (c) magnitude and(d) direction of the average velocity and the (e) magnitude and (f) direction of the average acceleration?

Please explain.

Answer 1

acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity (both magnitude and direction)

average acceleration over an interval = ((velocity after) - (velocity before))/ time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceleratio...

In this case, the magnitude of the velocity didn't change but the direction did so there was a non-zero acceleration

Remember: speed is a scalar, velocity and acceleration are vectors. The difference between two vectors is a vector. You can multiply and divide vectors by scalars.