Derivative, Velcity, Acceleration and MIT Pumpkin

derivatives

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A pumpkin is thrown-up from a MIT building as shown in 1st graph. 2nd graph is of its velocity (first derivative) and 3rd one is of acceleration (2nd derivative).

PROBLEM: I can't relate the reality of the motion of the pumpkin with the graphs.

Reality of Velocity: When we throw the pumpkin, its speed (velocity) starts to decrease and become zero at top and then speed starts to increase but since velocity is speed with direction and direction is downwards, hence velocity graph is going down. This means increase in velocity is being represented as negative number and a downward graph, I wonder how will one represent decreasing velocity, with a positive number and upward direction ?)

Reality of Acceleration: Going up pumpkin is de-accelerating (decreasing) and going down it is accelerating (increasing) but graph is constant, just straight line. By looking only at the graph of acceleration and without looking at velocity and the first graph, one can conclude acceleration was constant negative number. Hence when we throw anything up, it just continues to de-accelerate even when it falls down. Logic is wrong but that is what the graph says.

Best Answer

You’re using the word acceleration to mean two different, though related, things.

In colloquial usage (what you all “real life”), to accelerate means to increase speed, and to decelerate means to decrease speed. However, you’re working with velocities, which are directed—here signed—quantities. In this context, the word “acceleration” refers to any change in velocity, regardless of whether it increases or decreases the object’s speed, which is the velocity’s absolute value. This acceleration is also a signed quantity, but to determine whether it corresponds to an increase or decrease in speed, you also have to consider the sign of the velocity: when the signs are the same, the speed increases—an “acceleration” in the first sense above; when the signs differ, the speed decreases—a “deceleration.”

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