Question

How can I represent a car traveling at a constant speed in a speed-time graph?

Answer 1

Hint: It is given in the question that the car is traveling at a constant speed. Constant speed means the car will be traveling in a straight line without any disturbance along its way.

Complete step by step answer:
Before solving the question it is important to understand the concepts of the speed-time and its graph individually.
Speed is a vector quantity. It can be defined as a rate that is covered by an object in a given time. It has only magnitude and no direction and hence it is called a scalar quantity.
Time is one of the most basic and difficult concepts to be understood. Time cannot be perceived but it can be measured.
Let us try to understand the concept of the speed-time graph.
In a speed-time graph, the speed is mentioned on the y-axis vertically and time is mentioned on the x-axis horizontally.
Now we can answer the question.
Consider a car that is moving on a road. The speed of the car is constant. That means they will move in a straight line with constant time.
Consider the same car that is moving on a road. The speed varies along with time. Therefore, the car will have its motion varied.
If we mention these values in the graph of speed-time, we get, the car that moves at a constant speed will be a straight-line graph as the speed value is constant. The car that varies in speed and time, the graph will not be a straight-line graph.

The given graph is plotted between speed and time. The object moves at a constant speed. The constant speed is shown by a straight line on the graph.
Therefore, a straight horizontal line along the y-axis will be drawn in the graph as the speed value is constant.

Note:
In physics, the term acceleration refers to the increase in speed, and the opposite is known as deceleration. By changing the direction, we can get another aspect of the acceleration. That is even when there is no speed, if the direction is given, we can find the acceleration. It is because the velocity is a vector quantity.