Relative motion

Posted under HOT TOPICS on Tuesday, 1 September 2009 by admin

The most interesting and complicated term in physics is “RELATIVE”. We need to be extra careful when we

are using the word relative. There are also special “Theory of Relativity” which describes the word

“relative”. But we should not dare to study the “Theory of relativity” without knowing the basics of

relative motion. Relative motion has its own status in the study of physics.

Suppose you are riding on your bike and you are caught in a mild rain and you decide to go home faster

and you increase the speed of your bike and after sometime you realise that even a mild rain is causing

heavy impact on you and you are unable to ride your bike. Many have experienced but why is this? The answer

is simple, due to relative motion. The relative motion simply increases and hence the impact, which was

initially low to a large extent. One very good example is when you see two trains running parallely at

same velocity, you notice that the trains are in motion, but the person inside the train feels that

both the trains are at rest,because there is no relative motion between them. What can we conclude??????

We can only observe motion of a body or particle only when there is a relative motion between the observer

and the body. Is this true??? Yes it is, you can take the rotation of our own earth as an example.We

stand on the earth and hence cannot observe the rotation of the earth, instead we can see the motion of

sun, moon and the other heavenly bodies.Suppose, if we stand on the moon, we feel that moon is stagnent

and earth is revolving around it. Its just relative motion folks!!!! Can we say, the observation made by

the person on the moon is incorrect. We can say “yes” since we know that it is fact. How do you decide the

observation made by the person on the moon is correct or the one on the earth???? puts in all sorts of

trouble, right?? Let me give you an analogy to this problem. There is a running race going on and you

are supposed to declare the winner at last.To make this possible, you will first put a starting point

and an end point, in other words the refernce points. Now, this makes your job simpler in deciding the

winner of the race. These reference points is as important in observation of motion of heavenly bodies

and other bodies as in the case of a running race. Now you can easily decide whether the observation

made by the one on the moon is right or the one on the earth. Yes!!, thats it.. you need a reference

point to decide. What sort of a reference point? The reference point should be stationary with respect

to both earth and the moon or should be in uniform relative motion with both earth and the moon both

in terms of magnitude and direction. Hence a reference point makes the study of the relative motion

more meaningful.Study of relative motion is important to both reduce its ill effects and also enjoy

benifits of it..

The most interesting and complicated term in physics is “RELATIVE”. We need to be extra careful when weare using the word relative. There are also special “Theory of Relativity” which describes the word”relative”. But we should not dare to study the “Theory of relativity” without knowing the basics of relative motion. Relative motion has its own status in the study of physics.

Suppose you are riding on your bike and you are caught in a mild rain and you decide to go home faster and you increase the speed of your bike and after sometime you realise that even a mild rain is causing heavy impact on you and you are unable to ride your bike. Many have experienced but why is this? The answer is simple, due to relative motion. The relative motion simply increases and hence the impact, which was initially low to a large extent. One very good example is when you see two trains running parallely at same velocity, you notice that the trains are in motion, but the person inside the train feels that both the trains are at rest,because there is no relative motion between them. What can we conclude??????

We can only observe motion of a body or particle only when there is a relative motion between the observer and the body. Is this true??? Yes it is, you can take the rotation of our own earth as an example.We stand on the earth and hence cannot observe the rotation of the earth, instead we can see the motion ofsun, moon and the other heavenly bodies.Suppose, if we stand on the moon, we feel that moon is stagnent and earth is revolving around it. Its just relative motion folks!!!! Can we say, the observation made bythe person on the moon is incorrect. We can say “yes” since we know that it is fact. How do you decide the observation made by the person on the moon is correct or the one on the earth???? puts in all sorts of trouble, right?? Let me give you an analogy to this problem. There is a running race going on and you are supposed to declare the winner at last.To make this possible, you will first put a starting point and an end point, in other words the refernce points. Now, this makes your job simpler in deciding the winner of the race. These reference points is as important in observation of motion of heavenly bodies and other bodies as in the case of a running race. Now you can easily decide whether the observationmade by the one on the moon is right or the one on the earth. Yes!!, thats it.. you need a referencepoint to decide. What sort of a reference point? The reference point should be stationary with respectto both earth and the moon or should be in uniform relative motion with both earth and the moon bothin terms of magnitude and direction. Hence a reference point makes the study of the relative motionmore meaningful.Study of relative motion is important to both reduce its ill effects and also enjoy benifits of it..