Timeline for Why is speed defined like it is?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 31, 2017 at 17:23 | comment | added | John Alexiou | Related lecture: youtu.be/QG6zpNL-vek?list=PL55C7C83781CF4316 | |
| Jul 31, 2017 at 13:50 | comment | added | Jim | The answer is anthropological, not physical. A long time ago, people were travelling great distances. They likely noticed that sometimes other people or animals would travel the same distance but reach the destination before or after them. To describe this phenomenon, they said those that reach the end first had more speed than others. Higher speed meant you could go more distance in less time, which makes it a very useful measurement. It's even more useful if you quantify how much distance can be covered in a given unit of time. The mechanics of this definition imply that it must be a ratio. | |
| Jul 31, 2017 at 8:54 | comment | added | kubanczyk | Since both speed and distance can be measured, this question should be about time (note: clocks measure speed, not time; time is an artificial creation; it makes perfect sense to ask why it is defined like that). | |
| Jul 31, 2017 at 8:39 | answer | added | Dmitry Grigoryev | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 31, 2017 at 4:49 | history | protected | Qmechanic♦ | ||
| Jul 31, 2017 at 3:17 | answer | added | Matt Thompson | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 31, 2017 at 0:48 | comment | added | WillO | Also, I wonder why the word "garage" is defined as a structure where cars are parked. Of course, that definition is not too difficult to understand. But the word "garage" could have had many other meanings. It could have meant "three quarters of a pizza", for example. I'm not sure who the first person to define "garage" was, but I was wondering how they made the decision to define it as they did, instead of differently. | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 20:43 | vote | accept | dts | ||
| Jul 30, 2017 at 20:41 | answer | added | FGSUZ | timeline score: 31 | |
| S Jul 30, 2017 at 20:38 | history | suggested | Raknos13 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
corrected slight grammatical error in title
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| Jul 30, 2017 at 20:24 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 30, 2017 at 20:38 | |||||
| Jul 30, 2017 at 20:17 | answer | added | auden | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 19:17 | comment | added | StephenG - Help Ukraine | It is a definition. There's no why to a definition. If I define "wibble" as "foo" divided by "bar", that's just a definition. Speed just happens to be a useful definition, which wibble is not. Adding quantities of with different units makes no sense. | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:55 | answer | added | Dark Vader | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:44 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 31, 2017 at 5:48 | |||||
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:34 | answer | added | JMac | timeline score: 10 | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:33 | comment | added | Wrichik Basu | @dts speed is speed. You cannit ask why it's that. Feynman had said that Physics doesn't find answers to why always. I could ask why quarks have flavours, or why electron is fundamental. But these are stupid questions. | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:29 | comment | added | Wrichik Basu | @dts I get it: you want to add distance with time, ie [L] with [T]. I don't think that's quite supported. At least all books that I've read till the university level say that only similar quantities can be added. Maybe you've found a new theory. | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 18:10 | comment | added | DanielSank | Suppose I go one meter in one second, call that speed $v$. Now suppose I go one meter in two seconds. Doesn't that sound like the speed should be half, i.e. $v/2$? | |
| Jul 30, 2017 at 17:59 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 9 characters in body; edited tags
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| Jul 30, 2017 at 17:53 | history | asked | dts | CC BY-SA 3.0 |