| Speed | |
| Unit: | m/s, m s−1 |
| Symbols: | v |
| Dimension: | L T−1 |
In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as v) of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantity.[1] The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance travelled by the object divided by the duration of the interval;[2] the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as the duration of the time interval approaches zero. Speed is the magnitude of velocity (a vector), which indicates additionally the direction of motion.
Speed has the dimensions of distance divided by time. The SI unit of speed is the metre per second (m/s), but the most common unit of speed in everyday usage is the kilometre per hour (km/h) or, in the US and the UK, miles per hour (mph). For air and marine travel, the knot is commonly used.
The fastest possible speed at which energy or information can travel, according to special relativity, is the speed of light in vacuum c = metres per second (approximately or). Matter cannot quite reach the speed of light, as this would require an infinite amount of energy. In relativity physics, the concept of rapidity replaces the classical idea of speed.
Italian physicist Galileo Galilei is usually credited with being the first to measure speed by considering the distance covered and the time it takes. Galileo defined speed as the distance covered per unit of time. In equation form, that iswhere
v
d
t
Speed at some instant, or assumed constant during a very short period of time, is called instantaneous speed. By looking at a speedometer, one can read the instantaneous speed of a car at any instant. A car travelling at 50 km/h generally goes for less than one hour at a constant speed, but if it did go at that speed for a full hour, it would travel 50 km. If the vehicle continued at that speed for half an hour, it would cover half that distance (25 km). If it continued for only one minute, it would cover about 833 m.
In mathematical terms, the instantaneous speed
v
\boldsymbol{v}
\boldsymbol{r}
If
s
t
s
In the special case where the velocity is constant (that is, constant speed in a straight line), this can be simplified to
v=s/t
Different from instantaneous speed, average speed is defined as the total distance covered divided by the time interval. For example, if a distance of 80 kilometres is driven in 1 hour, the average speed is 80 kilometres per hour. Likewise, if 320 kilometres are travelled in 4 hours, the average speed is also 80 kilometres per hour. When a distance in kilometres (km) is divided by a time in hours (h), the result is in kilometres per hour (km/h).
Average speed does not describe the speed variations that may have taken place during shorter time intervals (as it is the entire distance covered divided by the total time of travel), and so average speed is often quite different from a value of instantaneous speed. If the average speed and the time of travel are known, the distance travelled can be calculated by rearranging the definition to
Using this equation for an average speed of 80 kilometres per hour on a 4-hour trip, the distance covered is found to be 320 kilometres.
Expressed in graphical language, the slope of a tangent line at any point of a distance-time graph is the instantaneous speed at this point, while the slope of a chord line of the same graph is the average speed during the time interval covered by the chord. Average speed of an object isVav = s÷t
Speed denotes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity describes both how fast and in which direction the object is moving.[4] If a car is said to travel at 60 km/h, its speed has been specified. However, if the car is said to move at 60 km/h to the north, its velocity has now been specified.
The big difference can be discerned when considering movement around a circle. When something moves in a circular path and returns to its starting point, its average velocity is zero, but its average speed is found by dividing the circumference of the circle by the time taken to move around the circle. This is because the average velocity is calculated by considering only the displacement between the starting and end points, whereas the average speed considers only the total distance travelled.
Units of speed include:
See main article: Orders of magnitude (speed).
| Speed | m/s | ft/s | km/h | mph | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 mm/year[5] | ||||||
| 4 cm/year. Varies depending on location. | ||||||
| 0.001 | 0.003 | 0.004 | 0.002 | 1 millimetre per second | ||
| 1.7 | 5.5 | 6.1 | 3.8 | |||
| A typical road cyclist | 4.4 | 14.4 | 16 | 10 | Varies widely by person, terrain, bicycle, effort, weather | |
| A fast martial arts kick | 7.7 | 25.2 | 27.7 | 17.2 | Fastest kick recorded at 130 milliseconds from floor to target at 1 meter distance. Average velocity speed across kick duration[6] | |
| Sprint runners | 12.2 | 40 | 43.92 | 27 | Usain Bolt's 100 metres world record. | |
| Approximate average speed of road race cyclists | 12.5 | 41.0 | 45 | 28 | On flat terrain, will vary | |
| Typical suburban speed limit in most of the world | 13.8 | 45.3 | 50 | 30 | ||
| Taipei 101 observatory elevator | 16.7 | 54.8 | 60.6 | 37.6 | 1010 m/min | |
| Typical rural speed limit | 24.6 | 80.66 | 88.5 | 56 | ||
| British National Speed Limit (single carriageway) | 26.8 | 88 | 96.56 | 60 | ||
| Category 1 hurricane | 33 | 108 | 119 | 74 | Minimum sustained speed over one minute | |
| Average peak speed of a cheetah | 33.53 | 110 | 120.7 | 75 | ||
| 36.1 | 118 | 130 | 81 | |||
| Highest recorded human-powered speed | 37.02 | 121.5 | 133.2 | 82.8 | Sam Whittingham in a recumbent bicycle[7] | |
| Average speed of Human sneeze | 44.44 | 145.82 | 160 | 99.42 | ||
| 90 | 295 | 320 | 200 | |||
| Cruising speed of a Boeing 747-8 passenger jet | 255 | 836 | 917 | 570 | Mach 0.85 at altitude | |
| Speed of a .22 caliber Long Rifle bullet | 326.14 | 1070 | 1174.09 | 729.55 | ||
| 341.1 | 1119.1 | 1227.98 | 763 | |||
| The speed of sound in dry air at sea-level pressure and 20 °C | 343 | 768 | Mach 1 by definition. 20 °C = 293.15 kelvins. | |||
| Muzzle velocity of a 7.62×39mm cartridge | 710 | The 7.62×39mm round is a rifle cartridge of Soviet origin | ||||
| Official flight airspeed record for jet engined aircraft | 980 | |||||
| Space Shuttle on re-entry | 17,500 | |||||
| Escape velocity on Earth | 11.2 km·s−1 | |||||
| Voyager 1 relative velocity to the Sun in 2013 | Fastest heliocentric recession speed of any humanmade object.[8] (11 mi/s) | |||||
| Average orbital speed of planet Earth around the Sun | ||||||
| 70,220 | 230,381 | 252,792 | 157,078 | Recognized as the fastest speed achieved by a man-made spacecraft, achieved in solar orbit. | ||
| Orbital speed of the Sun relative to the center of the galaxy | ||||||
| Speed of light in vacuum (symbol c) | Exactly, by definition of the metre | |||||
| Speed | m/s | ft/s | km/h | mph | Notes |
According to Jean Piaget, the intuition for the notion of speed in humans precedes that of duration, and is based on the notion of outdistancing.[9] Piaget studied this subject inspired by a question asked to him in 1928 by Albert Einstein: "In what order do children acquire the concepts of time and speed?"[10] Children's early concept of speed is based on "overtaking", taking only temporal and spatial orders into consideration, specifically: "A moving object is judged to be more rapid than another when at a given moment the first object is behind and a moment or so later ahead of the other object."[11]