Non-uniform motion examples

Non-uniform motion is a type of motion in which an object travels unequal distances in fixed intervals of time. For example, you are traveling from place A to place B. You first take a highway, and you go very fast on a highway. But, when you enter city traffic you tend to move slowly, and again, when you hit a highway, you move fast. This is called non-uniform motion. In this article, we discuss 10 examples of non-uniform motion.

Examples of non-uniform motion

  1. Running of athletes in a marathon
  2. the motion of a car in city traffic
  3. speaking
  4. curling stone
  5. mechanical bull ride
  6. An aircraft while landing
  7. Walking in a crowded street
  8. Taking a dog for a walk
  9. Dragging an object through lawn, concrete, and sandpit
  10. A bus on a hilly track

Let us look at each one of the examples in detail to understand non-uniform motion.

Running of athletes in a marathon: When athletes are running long distances, like in a marathon, they tend to pace their run. In the first phase, they will run at a particular speed, and then towards the end, they will increase their speed. So we can see the speed is not constant throughout the race.

Curling stone: In a game of curling, a stone slides across the surface to reach a goal. The sliding friction between the surface and the stone reduces the speed of the curling stone with time. So the speed is not uniform. In fact, all cases of sliding can be considered examples of non-uniform motion.

Curling: Example of non-uniform motion

The motion of a car: When we are driving a car, we try to maintain a constant speed, but it is practically impossible. We may have to stop at a traffic signal, pedestrian crossing, a traffic jam, etc.

Speaking: While we speak, we do not generally speak at a constant speed. We tend to increase or decrease our speed of speech to express our emotions better.

Taking a dog for a walk: While we take a dog for a walk. It might try to run for some time. It might stop on the sides for a while and then run again. This is again a non-uniform motion.

The motion of a dog is non-uniform. Image by Donald Clark from Pixabay 

Mechanical bull ride: In a mechanical bull ride, the bull is made to make sharp turns and changes in speed so as to make the rider fall. The changes in the speed of the bull make it challenging to adjust and hence the rider falls down.

An aircraft while landing: While an aircraft is in the air it cruises smoothly, this is periodic motion. But when it is landing on a runway, there is the application of brakes and the speed becomes non-uniform and we feel like being shaken to and fro. This is better experienced in a train when it comes to a stop. We tend to lean in front and then back. This is also an example of non-uniform motion.

Walking in a crowded street: When we walk in a crowded street, we have to walk and then stop and then move this goes on and on. Our speed is non-uniform.

Walking in a crowded street is an example of non-uniform motion.

Dragging an object through lawn, concrete, and sandpit: When we pull any object through a different surface, the speed varies due to the changes in frictional force. Thus the speed will not be uniform, it is very difficult to maintain uniform speed in such a case.

A bus on a hilly track: When we travel in a bus in a hilly area, there will be straight roads as well as elevated and sharp bends. The driver reduces the speed in sharp bends in order to reduce the radius of the turn. In some places, the roads are banked in order to allow turning at high speeds.

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