It is the radial velocity: that is, the speed in the direction towards or away from the origin. The slope will not be affected in any way at all by movement in other directions.
Chat with our AI personalities
The slope of a line on a position vs. time graph would represent the a velocity of the object being described.
The ratio of rise to run.
If you have an object that is accelerating, then a position vs. time graph will give you a parabola which is pretty but is very hard to measure anything on - especially hard to measure the acceleration (or the curve of the line). If however, you graph position vs. time squared, you get a nice straight line (if you have constant acceleration) and therefore, you can measure the slope and get the acceleration. Remember: x = 1/2at2 so if you graph x vs. t2 then the slope = 1/2 a or a = 2*slope No matter what you are measuring, you always want to graph a straight line. hope that helps
The slope of a speed vs time graph indicates an objects acceleration.
The slope of the speed-vs-time graph is the magnitude of acceleration.