Question

Which of the following represents the least amount of information needed to calculate the distance an object has traveled at time t?
a) A complete record of the velocity of the object from the beginning of its journey until time t.
b) A record of the velocity of the object from a moment shortly before time t until t.
c) The velocity of the object at time t.

Answer 1

Do you have a guess or no?

Answer 2

I think its C, but not sure.

Answer 3

A car travels at a variable speed.
It is traveling at 50 mph at time 1 hour since the trip started.
How much distance has the car traveled since it took off at time 0?

Answer 4

umm not sure. 50?

Answer 5

The situation above is an example of choice C.

Here is another example of choice C.
Get in a car and get ready to drive.
Set your stopwatch to zero.
Start your stopwatch and start driving.
Drive for 2 hours at different speeds.
At exactly 2 hours, you look in the speedometer, and you are driving 60 mph.
What is the total distance you drove in the two hours?

Answer 6

No.
In both of theses situations, there is no way of knowing what distance was traveled because the speed and the amount of time traveled at each speed were not recorded.
Choice C does not give you enough information to calculate the total distance driven.

Answer 7

Choice B is not much better because it only has the speed during a moment before time t.

Answer 8

In order to know the total distance traveled up to time t, you need to know the speed and time for the entire amount of travel up to time t.

Answer 9

okay,thanks!