In 1600s, armies used equations of motions to calculate
velocities and angle for firing a missile to
hit a target. While a quarterback does not do
explicit calculations using equations of motion,
a computerized football game will certainly need
to do these calculations.
We will use the metric notations that are favored for
all scientific and engineering calculations
Abbreviations
meters, m
kilometers, km: 1000 meters make up a kilometer
meters per second, m/s: units for measuring distance
meters per second squared, m/s 2: units for measuring acceleration
Notations
Abbreviation
Meaning
u
Initial velocity
v
Final velocity
a
Acceleration
t
Time
s
Distance
Equations
a = (v - u) / t, which can be arranged to get the following equation
t = (v - u) / a, which can be further arranged as
v = u + a * t
s = u * t + 0.5 * a * t 2, another useful equation of motion