The Collaborative International Dictionary
Velocity \Ve*loc"i*ty\, n.; pl. Velocities. [L. velocitas, from velox, -ocis, swift, quick; perhaps akin to v?lare to fly (see Volatile): cf. F. v['e]locit['e].]
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Quickness of motion; swiftness; speed; celerity; rapidity; as, the velocity of wind; the velocity of a planet or comet in its orbit or course; the velocity of a cannon ball; the velocity of light.
Note: In such phrases, velocity is more generally used than celerity. We apply celerity to animals; as, a horse or an ostrich runs with celerity; but bodies moving in the air or in ethereal space move with greater or less velocity, not celerity. This usage is arbitrary, and perhaps not universal.
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(Mech.) Rate of motion; the relation of motion to time, measured by the number of units of space passed over by a moving body or point in a unit of time, usually the number of feet passed over in a second. See the Note under Speed.
Angular velocity. See under Angular.
Initial velocity, the velocity of a moving body at starting; especially, the velocity of a projectile as it leaves the mouth of a firearm from which it is discharged.
Relative velocity, the velocity with which a body approaches or recedes from another body, whether both are moving or only one.
Uniform velocity, velocity in which the same number of units of space are described in each successive unit of time.
Variable velocity, velocity in which the space described varies from instant, either increasing or decreasing; -- in the former case called accelerated velocity, in the latter, retarded velocity; the acceleration or retardation itself being also either uniform or variable.
Virtual velocity. See under Virtual.
Note: In variable velocity, the velocity, strictly, at any given instant, is the rate of motion at that instant, and is expressed by the units of space, which, if the velocity at that instant were continued uniform during a unit of time, would be described in the unit of time; thus, the velocity of a falling body at a given instant is the number of feet which, if the motion which the body has at that instant were continued uniformly for one second, it would pass through in the second. The scientific sense of velocity differs from the popular sense in being applied to all rates of motion, however slow, while the latter implies more or less rapidity or quickness of motion.
Syn: Swiftness; celerity; rapidity; fleetness; speed.
Usage examples of "initial velocity".
Using the rubber membrane-bowling ball analogy, if we place a small ball-bearing on the membrane and set it off with some initial velocity, the path it will follow depends on whether or not the bowling ball is sitting in the center.
And with an initial velocity of 14,390 KPS and a maximum fleet acceleration of 450 gravities, they could reach Zanzibar's orbit in one hundred and sixteen minutes.
Their initial velocity had dropped to just over 2,175 KPS before they parted company from Volcano, but in another seven minutes, they would reach their peak velocity of 7,190 KPS and begin the thirty-four minutes and fifty-nine seconds of deceleration which would bring them to rest relative to Eroica Station at a range of eight million kilometers.
That, in turn, gave them a lower initial velocity, and since their missiles had exactly the same drives as any other missile, they couldn't make up the velocity differential unless the ship-launched birds were stepped down to less than optimal power settings.
He had four battlecruisers, supported by twelve lighter ships, and there was no way Saladin could outrun them with their initial velocity advantage.
Had they been in orbit, at least, they would have possessed an initial velocity of a few kilometers per second, something to work with.
They could have used the drive to impart a higher initial velocity and coasted the whole way without a stealth field, but they could neither have maneuvered nor slowed for atmospheric insertion without going into stealth.
But because they could not know the power of our sidereals or the time the selenoclasm would begin, or the initial velocity of the splitting masses of the Moon, they had to take into account that the dispersion pattern of the rocks might include their own territory as well.
The explosive charge destroys the metal case, converting it into jagged fragments with an initial velocity of about five thousand feet per second.
It would mean a lot of improvisation, and some difficult maneuvers, for the ship still had its enormous initial velocity.
They were being left behindor, more properly, were out-racing the ship, keeping their initial velocity while the ship continued to decelerate.