Introduction

You may have heard the term accelerator, referring to the gas pedal in a car. When the gas pedal is pushed down, the flow of gasoline to the engine increases, which increases the car’s velocity. Pushing on the gas pedal results in acceleration because the velocity of the car increases, and acceleration is defined as a change in velocity. You need two quantities to define velocity: a speed and a direction. Changing either of these quantities, or both together, changes the velocity. You may be surprised to learn that pushing on the brake pedal or turning the steering wheel also causes acceleration. The first reduces the speed and so changes the velocity, and the second changes the direction and also changes the velocity.

In fact, any change in velocity—whether positive, negative, directional, or any combination of these—is called an acceleration in physics. The plane in the picture is said to be accelerating because its velocity is decreasing as it prepares to land. To begin our study of acceleration, we need to have a clear understanding of what acceleration means.