What kind of speed registered by automobile speedometer: average speed or instantaneous speed ?

Explain your answer please, thank you ^_^

1 Answer
Jan 2, 2018

You can do this -- read and understand my explanation below.

Explanation:

That you need help on this question suggests that you need help understanding the terms. In the 2 explanations following, imagine a trip through a busy town and on the open hiway. The trip lasted a total of 1 hour.

Instantaneous speed: You start in town, going slowly past a market and through a school zone. When you get out of town, traffic varies -- sometimes behind a slow car and sometimes with no one else in sight. You know you will drive faster when conditions permit. Instantaneous speed is a measurement that shows how your speed changes from one instant to another.

Average speed: Average speed for the trip through a busy town and on the open hiway is a speed such that if you drove that speed for one hour out on the open road, you would travel the same distance as during the trip described above with its slow parts and its fast parts. Average speed is calculated #"total distance"/"total time"#. The value would be faster than the slowest portion of the above trip (through a busy town and on the open hiway) but not as fast as the fastest either. If you actually drove the original route constantly at that average speed , some parts would be scary and some parts would be boring.

Now, considering how brilliant my explanation is, I am sure you do not need further help answering the question.

Steve