Acceleration implies an increase in speed.
We have to go back to Latin in order to discover the etymological origin of the term acceleration that we are now going to proceed to analyze in a thorough manner. Thus, we find the fact that that word is made up of three Latin parts: the prefix ad – which means “towards”, the word celer which can be translated as “fast” and the suffix – ción which is synonymous with “action and effect".
Acceleration is the action and effect of accelerating (increasing speed). The term also allows us to name the vector magnitude that expresses said increase in speed in a unit of time (meter per second every second, according to its unit in the International System).
Acceleration can be negative ; In these cases, the magnitude would express a decrease in speed as a function of time .
Differences between acceleration and velocity
It is important to distinguish between speed (which reflects how the position of a body changes with respect to time) and acceleration (which indicates how said speed has changed). Acceleration mentions how the speed changes, not what the speed is: a body moving at high speed can have a very small acceleration.
There are different types of acceleration. Tangential acceleration is that which relates the variation of speed with time. On the other hand, normal or centripetal acceleration links changes in direction with time.
On the other hand, the average acceleration allows us to calculate the average change in speed in a certain time interval.
It is possible to classify acceleration in different ways according to its characteristics.
Other types
All of them are very important terms, as is the well-known centrifugal acceleration , which is one that is irremediably determined by the centrifugal force . That is, it is the acceleration experienced by moving bodies within a rotation system and which means that they will "flee" from the center.
And all this without forgetting what is known as Coriolis acceleration or Coriolis effect. The French scientist who gives it its name, Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, was the one who in 1836 described what is nothing more than the relative acceleration of a moving body within what is a rotational reference system.
Acceleration can have different directions . When the body is slowing down, its acceleration is directed in the opposite direction to its motion. On the other hand, when a body is increasing its speed (that is, it is accelerating), the acceleration maintains the same direction as the speed.
More uses of the term acceleration
In addition to all the above, we cannot ignore the fact that there is also what is known as the acceleration of fixed stars . This is an expression that is used in the field of Astronomy to refer to the daily interval in which, along the same meridian, the passage of a star precedes that of the Sun. Specifically, it has been calculated that it corresponds to three minutes and fifty-six seconds.
Finally, we can mention that acceleration can refer to the act of becoming dazed or dazed by a person: "Carlos is accelerated and does not think about what he is doing."