Question

I think I found an error in Hyperphysics site.
The question "Why is this relationship skewed toward higher speeds while the one directly above is not?" found in the link below,
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/kintem.html#c2
does have a very confusing answer. You cannot compare both distributions since one is about a velocity that can be + or -. The other is about speed (only +).

Answer 1

That's true, but if you asked for the speed distribution for a 1D system it would be essentially the same. The extra factor of v^2 comes into play not only because you're dealing with speed instead of velocity, but rather because you're dealing with 3 dimensions rather than 1.