2011-03-19, 12:59 PM
This was a question on my final, which I totally failed, got a D+ overall and can't move on to the next class in the series T~T. I'm hoping my reasoning is wrong, because this just hit me when I woke up this morning.
So the problem was, if an acceleration vector is perpendicular to its velocity vector, then prove that velocity is constant.
So if acceleration is perpendicular to velocity, then it only has a normal component and its tangential component is 0, and the tangential component is the derivative of the velocity, at least I think it is. So, integrating the tangential component, 0, gives you 0+c, and c is a constant, so velocity would be constant?
So the problem was, if an acceleration vector is perpendicular to its velocity vector, then prove that velocity is constant.
So if acceleration is perpendicular to velocity, then it only has a normal component and its tangential component is 0, and the tangential component is the derivative of the velocity, at least I think it is. So, integrating the tangential component, 0, gives you 0+c, and c is a constant, so velocity would be constant?