Connection for ap® courses

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. Even in inanimate objects, there is a 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? Where will a football land if it is thrown at a certain angle?

Understanding motion will not only provide answers to these questions, but will be key to understanding more advanced concepts in physics. For example, the discussion of force in Chapter 4 will not fully make sense until you understand acceleration. This relationship between force and acceleration is also critical to understanding Big Idea 3.

Additionally, this unit will explore the topic of reference frames, a critical component to quantifying how things move. If you have ever waved to a departing friend at a train station, you are likely familiar with this idea. While you see your friend move away from you at a considerable rate, those sitting with her will likely see her as not moving. The effect that the chosen reference frame has on your observations is substantial, and an understanding of this is needed to grasp both Enduring Understanding 3.A and Essential Knowledge 3.A.1.

Our formal study of physics begins with kinematics, which is defined as the study of motion without considering its causes . In one- and two-dimensional kinematics we will study only the motion of a football, for example, without worrying about what forces cause or change its motion. In this chapter, we examine the simplest type of motion—namely, motion along a straight line, or one-dimensional motion. Later, in two-dimensional kinematics, we apply concepts developed here to study motion along curved paths (two- and three-dimensional motion), for example, that of a car rounding a curve.

The content in this chapter supports:

Big Idea 3 The interactions of an object with other objects can be described by forces.

Enduring Understanding 3.A All forces share certain common characteristics when considered by observers in inertial reference frames.

Essential Knowledge 3.A.1 An observer in a particular reference frame can describe the motion of an object using such quantities as position, displacement, distance, velocity, speed, and acceleration.