1.1 Intro to position measurements

Greetings, future physicists!

If you have ever seen or been involved in a construction project, you will know that the first couple steps are actually kind of boring.  Usually, there's a bunch of wooden sticks with red flags put around to mark out the location of the foundation, and then a lot of digging happens.  Concrete forms are put in place, and a foundation is poured and hardens.  It's only after all that work is done that you can start seeing the structure rise up.

It's a big mess and there's not much to look at.

The stuff we're about to do is a lot like that foundation.  It's not very interesting, to be honest, and it's going to take some work to put in place.  However, just like the foundation of a building, everything you build goes on top of this structure, so it's best to do it right.

For the first few course modules, I will provide some guidance in bold italics.  You will get used to the framework quickly.

Every unit will start with some version of "what you will learn."

What you will learn in this unit:

• 1.1 Introduction.  (You're already there)

• 1.2:  Frames of reference, position, and displacement

• 1.3:  Velocity and Speed and equations of motion

• 1.4:  Acceleration

• 1.5:  Constant acceleration and the equations that go with it.

• 1.6:  Free fall:  a special case of constant acceleration