Describe and elaborate on what speed and velocity is. I am not looking for textbook definitions. I'm looking for other peoples understanding on this. Posted here due to Physics section being slow.

Question

shadowlegendx · Answer

I'm looking to keep this open for a couple of days as not too many people seem to be on, so you can take your time.

ilovepuppieslol · Answer

speed basically sticking an s in front of the past tense of taking a leak, and i believe velocity is putting the french word for bike in front of a city

ilovepuppieslol · Answer

apparently its Romanian  for bike as well, i did not know that

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

Imagine you're on a number line at 0. You can only move in one direction towards the positive numbers

Speed would be represented by how fast you move from 0 to any other number. For example, moving from 0 to 10 in 5 seconds means your speed is 10/5 = 2 units per second

If you ignore the direction component, then it's just speed. However, if you introduce the direction, then you have velocity. So if you move 2 units per second in the north direction, then that is your velocity. 

Speed has one component while velocity has 2 components (speed being part of velocity)

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

Both are handy in different contexts. For instance, speed is useful for when you're pulled over for driving too fast. An officer isn't going to say "your velocity was too high" because the direction isn't important. If you broke the speed limit, that's all that matters. 

But sometimes you want the direction when it comes to how a particle moves. The particle may alter it's speed and direction (like it's in a moving fluid or someting) over time.

ilovepuppieslol · Answer

what the heck

aravindg · Answer

Speed is  scalar means it does not have direction.  Velocity is a vector so it has both direction and magnitude. Speed is always greater than or equal to 0 while velocity can be negative.