Question

Differentiate between average speed and instantaneous speed of an object.

Answer 1

Hint:The rate of change of position of an object in any direction is known as Speed. Speed is defined as the ratio of distance travelled to the time it took to travel that distance. Since speed has just one direction and no amplitude, it is a scalar quantity.

Complete answer:
Average speed:The distance travelled by a body in a given time period divided by time is the average speed of that body in that time interval. So, if a particle travels a given distance s in time t₁ to t₂, the body's average speed is: \[{v_{av}} = \dfrac{s}{{{t_2} - {t_1}}}\]

Instantaneous speed:We know that the total distance travelled divided by the total time taken equals the average speed over a given time period. The distance travelled reaches zero as the time interval approaches zero.

However, the instantaneous speed is the non-zero end of the distance-to-time ratio. We may also assume that instantaneous speed at any given moment is the magnitude of instantaneous velocity at that time, to put it another way.The instantaneous speed formula is given by \[\text{Speed} = \dfrac{{ds}}{{dt}}\]

Note:The speedometer keeps track of how far you are at any given moment. This illustrates the concept of instantaneous speed. The speed of a particle in motion at any given point in time is known as instantaneous speed.