Question

What is the difference between average velocity, velocity and instantaneous velocity? And does the magnitude of velocity have direction?

Answer 1

Average velocity is the mean velocity over a period of time. Consider the case of a car starting from rest, accelerating and stopping finally. Even though the car has different velocities at different time, average velocity considers only the total distance travelled and total time taken. So, from average velocity, we will not get any information whether the car has slowed down or accelerated in between two locations.

As the name suggest, instantaneous velocity gives the velocity at an instant in time. Consider the example of the car in the previous part. The car has a small instantaneous velocity which may be less than the average velocity at the start, Once it speeds up instantaneous velocity increases.

Velocity has both magnitude and direction and it is a vector quantity. But speed has only magnitude and it is a scalar quantity.