- #1
Jamie S
- 7
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HW Template missing as it was moved from another forum
Hi all,
I started a level 3 btech in mech engineering and today was my first physics class. All went well apart from the tricky question at the end of class.
I thought it was a good idea to ask the question "how much harder can this be from last year".
Turns out for me not being brilliant at calculus it can be much harder.
The question surrounded the formula s=ut+1/2at^2
I was asked to differentiate s with respect to t, and show displacement is a minimum when u= - at
Off course it was a disaster and i laughed it off has not being forced to answer the question at which point other pupils attempted it.
We never did have it explained fully but it has made me wonder how one would go about answering this using differentiation. I've used algebra and transposed the formula before but this is the first time I've seen it this way.
It all got a little bit more confusing when someone suggested that it can't be differentiated until its been integrated. Is there any truth in this?
Cheers
I started a level 3 btech in mech engineering and today was my first physics class. All went well apart from the tricky question at the end of class.
I thought it was a good idea to ask the question "how much harder can this be from last year".
Turns out for me not being brilliant at calculus it can be much harder.
The question surrounded the formula s=ut+1/2at^2
I was asked to differentiate s with respect to t, and show displacement is a minimum when u= - at
Off course it was a disaster and i laughed it off has not being forced to answer the question at which point other pupils attempted it.
We never did have it explained fully but it has made me wonder how one would go about answering this using differentiation. I've used algebra and transposed the formula before but this is the first time I've seen it this way.
It all got a little bit more confusing when someone suggested that it can't be differentiated until its been integrated. Is there any truth in this?
Cheers