Question

The Speed-Time graph for a particle moving at constant speed is a straight-line ____________ to the time axis.

Answer 1

Hint: In order to solve this question, we are going to first see what a velocity time graph is and how it is specifically drawn for a particle moving at the constant speed. After that, we can easily know what the straight line is like and what the straight line’s direction is with respect to the time axis.

Complete step-by-step answer:
The speed time graph is a plot that shows the speed of a particle at the \[y\]-axis and the time taken at the \[x\]-axis. For a particle moving at a constant speed, the speed of the particle does not change with the time that is increasing which means that the \[x\]-coordinates are changing but the \[y\]- value corresponding to the \[x\] values, remains the same. This gives a number of points that have the coordinates,\[\left( {x,v} \right)\],where, \[v\]is the constant speed value. This means that the curve so formed is actually a straight line, now as it is the \[y\] – coordinate that remains the same, so the straight line is parallel to the time-axis.
Thus the full sentence becomes ,
The Speed-Time graph for a particle moving at constant speed is a straight-line “parallel” to the time axis.

Note: It is important to note that when a curve is parallel to the time axis then the acceleration which is equal to the tangent of the curve, i.e. equal to the tangent of the angle of the curve to the \[x\]-axis. Now as the line is parallel so the angle is zero, hence, the acceleration of the particle is zero.