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Re: Questions on Neg. and Pos. Acceleration

On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, Peter Vajk wrote:

Is it possible for an object to have a negative acceleration while
increasing in speed?
Yes, if you put your car in reverse and floor it.

YARG! This is just the sort of thinking that most of the people here are
trying to avoid -- the misconception that going in reverse is
automatically negative acceleration. It is if you define backwards as the
negative direction, but you are under no requirement to do so.

This thinking is necessary to explain free fall accelerations. If I make
up positive and down negative, then a thrown object has negative
acceleration the whole time. It is slowing down on the way up and speeding
up on the way down.

---

Marc Kossover
marck9@mail.idt.net