ScienceVerseLearning path: Motion
The concepts to learn before Motion, in order. Each step links to its page and, where one exists, its quiz.
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No prerequisites
Motion has no prerequisite concepts: you can start here.
- MotionYour goal
The change in an object's position over time relative to a reference frame. Kinematics describes motion using position, velocity (the rate of change of position) and acceleration (the rate of change of velocity), without yet asking what causes it.
Where to go next
Concepts that build directly on Motion:
- Energy: The capacity to do work, taking forms such as kinetic energy (associated with motion) and potential energy (associated with position or configuration, such as height in a gravitational field). The total energy of an isolated system is conserved: energy changes form but is never created or destroyed.
- Forces: A push or pull interaction between two objects, capable of changing an object's velocity. Newton's three laws of motion describe how forces and motion relate: a body keeps its state of motion unless acted on by a net force (first law), net force equals mass times acceleration, F = ma (second law), and forces between two bodies are equal and opposite (third law).
- Momentum: The product of an object's mass and velocity, a vector quantity describing the 'quantity of motion' it carries. In a closed system with no external forces, total momentum before and after an interaction such as a collision is conserved, even when kinetic energy is not (as in an inelastic collision).