Beta Phase: Square45 is currently in beta testing. Expect some features or content to be incomplete or missing.
45

Constant Acceleration

Kinematics deals primarily with situations where the acceleration of an object is constant, simplifying the analysis.
📜

The statement of the theorem

Let r(t)R3\mathbf{r}(t) \in \mathbb{R}^3 be the position vector of a particle at time tRt \in \mathbb{R}. Define the acceleration vector a(t)\mathbf{a}(t) such that a(t)=a0\mathbf{a}(t) = \mathbf{a}_0, where a0R3\mathbf{a}_0 \in \mathbb{R}^3 is a constant vector. The velocity vector v(t)\mathbf{v}(t) and the position vector r(t)\mathbf{r}(t) are then determined by the following differential equations and initial conditions:\\begin{align*} \frac{d^2\mathbf{r}}{dt^2} &= \mathbf{a}_0 \\ \frac{d\mathbf{r}}{dt} &= \mathbf{v}(t) \\ \mathbf{r}(0) &= \mathbf{r}_0 \\ \mathbf{v}(0) &= \mathbf{v}_0 \end{align*}\newline\text{The unique solution to this system is given by the explicit kinematic equations:}\newline\mathbf{r}(t) &= \mathbf{r}_0 + \mathbf{v}_0 t + \frac{1}{2} \mathbf{a}_0 t^2 \\ \mathbf{v}(t) &= \mathbf{v}_0 + \mathbf{a}_0 t