As a physical vector magnitude, speed refers to the distance traveled in a certain unit of time.
From the Latin velocĭtas , speed is promptness in movement . For example: «I tried to catch up with him, but I didn't have enough speed and he escaped» , «We need a striker with greater speed» , «The offender crossed the bridge at full speed and was only caught about ten kilometers further on» .
Speed is also a physical vector magnitude that reflects the distance traveled by a body in a unit of time. The meter per second (m/s) is its unit in the International System.
Speed Limits
Average speed is the average speed over a time interval. To do this, you need to divide the displacement by the time it took to complete it. For example, if a car took ten hours to travel a distance of 500 kilometers, its average speed was 50 kilometers per hour .
It is important to note that in all countries there are currently a series of speed limits when it comes to driving vehicles. So much so that anyone who exceeds these limits will have to face a series of consequences such as fines, community service and even, in very specific cases, prison sentences.
Athletics events
Sprinting is an athletics event that consists of running as fast as possible over a certain distance. The most popular sprint event is the 100-meter dash, with Jamaican Usain Bolt as the record holder with a time of 9.67 seconds .
However, there are other sprint events such as the 60, 200 and 400 metres. These competitions have all succeeded in elevating figures such as the American Maurice Greene, the Russian Irina Privalova, the American Florence Griffith-Joyner, the German Marita Koch, the French Marie-José Perec and the American Michael Johnson to the top of the sport .
Speed racing is popular in motorcycling and motor racing.
Speed in motorsport and motorcycling
Speed races also take place in motor racing ( speed racing ) and motorcycling ( speed racing ). These are sports races in which the objective is to complete a certain number of laps of a circuit in the shortest possible time, or to make the greatest number of laps in a given time. Formula 1 is an example of speed racing.
In the case of this motor racing competition, it is worth highlighting the important feats achieved by drivers of the calibre of Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen, Fernando Alonso and Alain Prost.
The speed at which they travel during competitions is so high that unfortunately any crashes or departures from the track have very serious consequences. For example, the Brazilian Ayrton Senna died during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix as a result of a severe impact on his vehicle.
Other uses of the term
Finally, the speeds are the positions of the driving mechanism of a gearbox : "You have to go up this hill in first gear because it is very steep."
In addition to all of the above, we must highlight the existence of a series of expressions that we use in colloquial language and that employ the term that we are now dealing with. This would be the case of the well-known verbal expression «confuse speed with bacon», which is used to refer to someone mixing up aspects that have nothing to do with each other.