How to Calculate Velocity

Below is a video explaining how to calculate velocity. Velocity is often used in physics and math in conjunction with speed and acceleration. Common velocity calculations include how to calculate the flow velocity, how to calculate final velocity, how to calculate air velocity, how to calculate angular velocity, and how to calculate terminal velocity.

More complicated velocity calculations will be covered in other sections of this website. Here, we are going to calculate average velocity.

What is Velocity?

Velocity is often given the symbol v.  Velocity is the speed of an object in a given direction. In comparison, speed has no direction but the velocity has direction.

Velocity is equivalent to how far you have travelled at a given speed. So, if you keep moving back and forth, with high speed, you still probably wouldn't have gone anywhere. Velocity is a vector quantity. When reporting a velocity, you need to specify both speed and direction.

Both speed and direction are important when reporting a velocity of an object. Velocity is the change in position by time taken. So, an object travelling at a constant speed in different directions will have different velocities.

Video showing how to calculate velocity