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From: rcj@burl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Rate of Speed
Message-ID: <173@burl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jun-83 19:47:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.173
Posted: Sun Jun 12 19:47:16 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 02:35:49 EDT
Lines: 29

Just resubscribed to this newsgroup, and had forgotten how
DAMNED PICKY you people can be.  Just to join in for fun, here
is my $.02 regarding "rate of speed":

All these are taken from Halliday & Resnick's popular book for
first semester physics:  Fundamentals of Physics.

The VELOCITY of a particle is the rate at which its position changes
with time.  The INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY of a particle is the limit
of change in displacement over change in time at time 't' as both
change in displacement and change in time approach zero.  The SPEED of
a particle is the MAGNITUDE of the INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY of the particle.
The ACCELERATION of a particle is rate of change of its VELOCITY with time.

Hence, the phrase "rate of speed" makes no more sense than the
phrase "rate of 40" -- to seriously consider talk about the rate of
a scalar magnitude is ridiculous.  Speed cannot possibly equate to
velocity, not even in a one-dimensional universe -- travel in a single
dimension still has two possible directions.

I hope this quiets things down, but now I would like to start up a
new one on a very closely related subject:  What about words like
speed, which mean one thing to the layman and quite another to the
specialist.  Quite often, these words mean different things to different
specialists as well.  Anyone want to talk about such words?
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ floyd sb1 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj