What Is Speed And Velocity?

Speed is the distance travelled in the given time. Its a scaler quantity but Velocity is speed with a direction and a vector quantity.

To a layman, both "speed" and "velocity" means the same. However, there is a difference between both the terms. One of the best ways to distinguish between "speed" and "velocity" is to comprehend the difference between distance and displacement.

Speed basically tells you how fast you are going. For example, the speedometer in the car will tell you the "speed" at which you are moving. However it will not tell you about the direction in which you are going. This simply means one thing, speed does not involve direction.

An average speed= Distance Travelled/ Time taken to travel the required distance.

Velocity involves direction in addition to speed. In other words, if you want to know the velocity of a particular object, you ought to know it speed as well as displacement (read direction!). In a car, a velocity can be determined by a compass in addition to a speedometer. Velocity can thus be defined as the rate of change in displacement with respect to time.