Motion and Time Class 7

Notes Science Chapter 13

In our daily life routine, we usually see some objects at rest and others in motion
like birds fly, fish swimming, planets moving around the sun, etc., are all in
motion. When an object changes its position with time, we often perceive an
object to be in motion, e.g. when the position of a car changes with time, we say
that the car is moving or the car is in motion.

Types of Motion
The motion of all the objects are not of the same type. There are four
different types of motion shown by the different objects.

Rectilinear motion: The motion possessed by the body moving along a

straight line path, is called rectilinear motion,
e.g. the motion of a train on a straight bridge.

Circular motion: The motion possessed by a body when it moves along a

circular path, is called circular motion,
e.g. the motion of a child in a merry-go-round, motion of the
earth around the sun in a circular orbit.

Rotational motion: The motion possessed by a body when it spins about

a fixed axis, is called rotational motion,
e.g. the motion of the earth about its axis, spinning top, the
motion of blades of a fan.

Periodic motion: The motion which repeats itself after regular intervals
of time, is called periodic motion,
e.g. the motion of the swing, to and fro motion of a simple
pendulum.

Slow or Fast Motion

An object which takes a long time to cover a certain distance is known as
slow while the other object which takes shorter time to cover the same
distance is known as fast, e.g. if your school is at a distance of 5 km from
your home and you want to go to school by bicycle, then it may take
about 25 min to reach the school and if you go to school by school bus,
then the same distance can be covered only in 10 min.
It means that a bicycle takes a longer time than the bus.
Thus, the most convenient way to determine which of the two objects is
moving faster is to compare the distance moved by them in a unit time
which is known as speed.
Speed
The distance travelled by an object per unit time (either in one hour, in
one minute or in one second) is known as speed of the object. A slow
moving object is said to have a low speed and a fast moving object is said
to have high speed. So, if we know the distance covered by two buses in
one hour, then we can answer which one is slower. Therefore, the formula
for calculating the speed of an object can be given by
Speed =Distance travelled /Time
taken
e.g. If a car travels a distance of 100 km in 2 h, then the speed of this car
is given by
Speed = 100km / 2h = 50 km/h
It shows that the car will travel a distance of 50 km in 1 h. It does not
matter if a car seldom moves with a constant speed for one hour as it
starts moving slowly and then picks up speed. So, when we say that the
car is moving with a speed of 50 km/h, then we do not bother whether the
car has been moving with a constant speed or not during that hour.
Therefore, the speed calculated here is the average speed of the car.

Non-Uniform and Uniform Motions

In everyday life, we seldom find objects moving with a constant speed
over long distances or for iong durations of time. If the speed of an object
moving along a straight line beeps changing, its motion is said to be non-
uniform motion.
On the other hand, an object moving along a straight line with a constant
speed is said to be in uniform motion. In this case, the average speed is
the same as the actual speed.

Units of Speed
The unit of speed depends upon the unit of distance and the unit of time
used.

 The metre is the standard unit of distance and second is the

standard unit of time. So, the standard unit of speed is metre
per second (m/s).
 The large values of speed are expressed in kilometre per hour
(km/h) and in this case, the distance travelled is measured in
terms of kilometre and time taken is measured in an hour.
 The small values of speed are expressed in centimetre per
second (cm/s) and in this case, the distance travelled is
 measured in terms of centimetre and time taken is measured
in second.

If we have to compare the speeds of a number of objects, then we must

express the speeds of all those objects in the same unit.

Measurement of Time
A duration or moment in which things occur is known as time. With the
help of clocks and watches, we generally
measure time. It is very difficult to think that how did the people in
ancient time measure times as they did not have clocks or watches.

In order to measure the time, ancient people used some natural events
which repeated regularly after fix time intervals, e.g. they found that the
sun rises every day in the morning. So, the time between one sunrise and
the next I was known as a day. In a similar manner, time from one full
moon to the next full moon was. called a month.

A year was fixed as the time taken by the earth to complete one
revolution of the sun.
Many time measuring devices were used in different parts of the world
before the pendulum clocks became popular. Sundials water clocks and
sand clocks are some examples of such devices.

Note
(i) A sundial measures time by the position of the shadow cast by the sun.
(ii) The device which uses the flow of sand from one glass bulb to another
in order to measure time is known as a sand clock
(iii) A device which uses the rate at which water drip from one vessel to
another measure time interval is known as a water clock

Simple Pendulum
A simple pendulum consists of a small metal ball called bob which is
suspended by a long thread from rigid support such that bob is free to
swing back and forth. The to and fro motion of a simple pendulum is an
example of periodic or oscillatory motion. Galileo was the first person to
study the motion of a
pendulum.
A pendulum completes every swing or every oscillation in exactly the
same time provided its length should be kept constant. The pendulum is
said to have completed one oscillation when its bob starting from its mean
position F, moves to D, to E and back to F. The pendulum also completes
one oscillation when its bob moves from one extreme position D to the
other extreme position E and come back to D. So, the time taken by the
pendulum to complete one oscillation is called its time period. The time
period of a pendulum depends on its length. The length of a pendulum is
the length of thread from the point of suspension to the centre of the bob.

Note: Galileo experimented with various pendulums to verify his

observation. He found that a pendulum of a given length tabes always the
same time to complete one oscillation. This observation led to the
development of pendulum clocks. Winding clocks and wristwatches were
refinements of the pendulum clocks.

Units of Time
Second is the basic unit (or standard unit) of measuring time and it is
represented by symbol s. The larger units of time are minute and hour.
i.e. 1 h = 60 min and 1 min = 60 s
Different units of time are used depending on the need, e.g. in order to
express the longer time interval, the bigger units of time are used, i.e.
day, month and year.
i.e. 1 day = 24 h, 1 month = 30 days and 1 year = 12 months

Note: Nowadays, most clocks or watches have an electric circuit with one
or more cells. These clocks are called quartz clocks. The time measured
by quartz clocks is much more accurate than that by the clocks available
earlier.

Measuring Speed
We have learnt how to measure distance and time, we can calculate the
speed of an object. Now, we should learn how to measure the speed by
doing an activity.

Speedometer and Odometer

The speedometer is an instrument on a vehicle’s dashboard which
indicates the speed of the vehicle when it is moving. This instrument tells
us the speed of a running vehicle at that instant of time in kilometre per
hour.
e.g. A panel of instruments fitted on the top of a scooter or a motorcycle.
In the same way, metres can be seen on the dashboard of cars, buses and
other vehicles in addition to the speedometer, there is another instrument
in a vehicle called odometer. An instrument which is used for measuring
the distance travelled by a vehicle is known as an odometer. This
instrument measures the distance in kilometres. Usually, a small
rectangular window within speedometer dial with the symbol km (as
shown in the figure) gives the (metre).

Graphical
Representation of
Motion
By drawing the distance-time graph, the
motion of an object can be represented
in diagram form. A distance-time graph
represents how the distance travelled
by a moving object changes with time.

Method to Draw Distance-time Graph

To draw a distance-time graph, use a graph paper. For drawing the
distance-time graph for a moving object, we require the readings of
distances travelled by the object and the corresponding time values which
have been obtained experimentally.
The distances travelled by
car at various Distance(k 1 times are
shown below: 0 2 4 6 8
m) 0

1
Time (min) 0 2 4 6 8
0

 Firstly, we take the graph paper and draw a horizontal line OX

(x-axis) and a vertical line OY (y-axis) at right angles to each
other.
 Now, write time (min) on x-axis and distance (km) on the y-axis
and also put arrows with them.
 In this problem, we have only small time values (0, 2, 4, 6, 8
and 10 min) to represent. So, the scale to be used for showing
time can be 2 min = 2 cm. Here, we mark the time values 0, 2,
 4, 6, 8 and 10 on the line OX as shown in the figure given as
alongside.
 Again, the distance values given in this problem are small (0, 2,
4, 6, 8 and 10 km). So, the scale to be used for representing
distance values on the graph can be 2 km = 2 cm. We now
mark the distance values 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 on the line OY
(see figure).
 We can see in the graph that the first reading given in this
problem is time = 0 and distance = 0. The point O (called
origin) represents the 0 (zero) values both for time and
distance. Therefore, at point O on graph paper, time is 0 and
distance is also 0. The second reading is time = 2 min and
distance = 2 km.
 Now, the vertical line above the 2 min mark on the graph paper and
horizontal line on the right side of 2 km mark on graph paper cross
at point A (see figure). So, we put a pencil dot at point A.
 In the same way, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth readings of time
and the corresponding readings of distance will give us points B, C,
D and E on the graph paper which are marked as pencil dots (see
figure).
 After joining the point O and the dots at point A, B, C, D and E with a
pencil line, we will get a straight line graph OE (see figure). So, this
is the required distance-time graph for the motion of the car.

Since the distance-time graph for the motion of the car is a straight line,
so from here we can conclude that the car is moving with a constant
speed (or uniform speed).

Other Types of Graphs

We generally see while reading newspapers, magazine, etc., that the
present information is represented in various forms of graphs in order to
make it interesting. These graphs generally
bar graphs and pie chart as shown in the
figure.
A diagram which shows information as thin rectangles (known as bars) of
different heights is known as a bar graph. In this graph, the position and
heights of the bars represent the values of the variable quantity about
which information is being given.

A kind of graph or diagram which

shows the percentage
composition of something in the
form of slices of a circle (the
whole circle representing 100 per
cent), is known as a pie chart.