Explain the difference between positive and negative acceleration?

Answer 1

well the difference between positive and negative velocity would have to be that if your motion speeds up than you have a positive

and when or if your motion slows down then you would have a negative accelerarion!!!!

Answer 2

Acceleration is defined as :

When velocity of a body gradually increases with time we say that the body is accelerating with respect to time

Retardation is defined as :

when the rate of velocity of a moving body decreases it is called retardation

Answer 3

Acceleration is a vector. It has both a magnitude and a direction. So you first have to choose which direction is positive. Lets say we choose "left" as negative and "right" as positive. If an object is increasing speed (positive magnitude) while moving Right (positive direction) its acceleration is Positive' If an object is decreasing speed (negative magnitude) while moving Right (positive direction) its acceleration is Negative. If an object is increasing speed (positive) while moving Left (negative direction) its acceleration is Negative. If an object is decreasing speed (negative) while moving Left (negative) its acceleration is Positive. For vertical motion you would probably choose "up" as positive and "down" as negative.

Answer 4

Positive acceleration means the magnitude of velocity is increasing,

i.e. something is speeding up.

Negative acceleration means the magnitude of velocity is decreasing,

i.e. something is slowing down.

Answer 5

Positive and negative velocities are simply velocities in opposite directions.

Before you start working on the situation, you definewhich direction you're

going to call positive. Anything you find moving the other way has negative

velocity.

Answer 6

It really depends on your perspective, and how you set your directions. As you may know, acceleration is the change in velocity, which is direction dependent. Therefore, acceleration is also direction dependent. Acceleration is positive if it is in the same direction as the positive direction, and negative if it is the same direction as the negative direction.

This may seem arbitrary but for most physics problems the assignment of positive and negative directions is purely in the mind of the person doing the problem, because in the end the answer comes out the same.

Answer 7

You arbitrarily define a direction to be positive and the direction opposite to it is then negative. Measurements in the first direction are positive and those in the second are negative.

For example, if you are considering the motion of a ball that is thrown upwards, you could choose the upward direction to be positive. Then the initial velocity of the ball would be positive but the acceleration due to gravity (which is acting in the downward direction) would be negative acceleration.

But you could, instead, choose to call the downward direction positive. In that case, the initial velocity of the ball would be negative and the acceleration due to gravity would be positive acceleration.

So it is all relative.

Another way to look at it is that if the object being studied is slowing down it is negative acceleration and if it is speeding up it is positive. [Unfortunately that does not work with the above example because the object is slowing down initially and then speeding up.]

Answer 8

when velocity is increasing,accleration is positiveand when velocity is decreasing,accleration is said to be negative.

Answer 9

Positive acceleration results in the object speeding up, such as a car going from 0mph to 30mph. Negative acceleration is the object decelerating, such as using the brake in a car.