From Mechanics

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Revision as of 08:43, 7 April 2010

The area under the velocity-time graph gives the distance travelled.

This area can be calculated either by breaking up the area into three parts, two triangles and a rectangle or by using the formula for the area of a trapedium as the graph in the figure defines a trapezium with the \displaystyle t-axis.

This latter method gives

\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}\left( 21+\left[ 16-7 \right] \right) \text{s}\times 9 \text{m}{{\text{s}}^{\text{-1}}}=135\ \text{m}