A frame of reference in physics, may refer to a coordinate system or set of axes within which to measure the position, orientation,
and other properties of objects in it, or it may refer to an reference frame tied to the state of motion of an observer. It may also refer to both an observational reference frame and an attached coordinate system as a unit.
Simple example
Figure 1: Two cars moving at different but constant velocities observed from stationary inertial frame S attached to the road and moving inertial frame S' attached to the first car. Consider a situation common in everyday life. Two cars travel along a road, both moving at constant velocities. See Figure 1. At some particular moment, they are separated by 200 metres. The car in front is travelling at 22 metres per second and the car behind is travelling at 30 metres per second. If we want to find out how long it will take the second car to catch up with the first, there are three obvious "frames of reference" that we could choose. First, we could observe the two cars from the side of the road. We define our "frame of reference" S as follows. We stand on the side of the road and start a stop-clock at the exact moment that the second car passes us, which happens to be when they are a distance d = 200 m apart. Since neither of the cars is accelerating, we can determine their positions by the following formulas, where is the position in meters of car one after time t seconds and position of car two after time t. is the
Notice that these formulas predict at t = 0 s the first car is 200 m down the road and the second car is right beside us, as expected. We want to find the time at which . Therefore we set and solve for , that is:
Alternatively, we could choose a frame of reference S' situated in the first car. In this case, the first car is stationary and the second car is approaching from behind at a speed of v2 v1 = 8 m / s. In order to catch up to the first car, it will take a time of d /( v2 v1) = 200 / 8 s, that is, 25 seconds, as before. Note how much easier the problem becomes by choosing a suitable frame of reference. The third possible frame of reference would be attached to the second car. That example resembles the case just discussed, except the second car is stationary and the first car moves backward towards it at 8 m / s. It would have been possible to choose a rotating, accelerating frame of reference, moving in a complicated manner, but this would have served to complicate the problem unnecessarily. It is also necessary to note that one is able to convert measurements made in one coordinate system to another. For example, suppose that your watch is running five minutes fast compared to the local standard time. If you know that this is the case, when somebody asks you what time it is, you are able to deduct five minutes from the time displayed on your watch in order to obtain the correct time. The measurements that an observer makes about a system depend therefore on the observer's frame of reference (you might say that the bus arrived at 5 past three, when in fact it arrived at three).
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Motion in One, Two and Three Dimensions
A body is said to be in motion if its position changes with respect to its surrounding. In order to completely describe the motion of such objects, we need to specify its position. For this, we need to know the position coordinates. In some cases, three position coordinates are required, in some cases two or one coordinate is required. Based on these, motion can be classified as
One dimensional motion Two dimensional motion Three dimensional motion
Sub Topics
Motion in one dimension Motion in two dimensions Motion in three dimensions Problem Solution:
Motion in one dimension
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It is also known as rectilinear or linear motion. A particle moving along a straight line is said to undergo one dimensional motion. In such a case, only one of the three rectangular coordinates changes with time.
For example, if we consider one dimensional motion along the X-axis, then when the particle moves from A to B, as shown in the figure below, the X coordinate changes from x1 to x2.
The straight line along which one dimensional motion takes place may be taken either along the X, Y or Z-axis.
Examples of one dimensional motion are:
Motion of a train along a straight line An object, like a ball, falling freely, vertically under gravity The vertical up and down oscillations of an object suspended from a vertical spring.
Motion in two dimensions
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A particle moving along a curved path in a plane has two dimensional motion. The figure below, illustrates a two dimensional motion, where a particle moves from P (x1, y1) to Q (x2, y2) along a curved path.
Examples of two dimensional motion are:
an insect crawling on a ball or a globe a satellite revolving round the Earth
projectile motion, i.e., the two dimensional motion of a particle thrown obliquely into the air, like a baseball or a golf ball as shown below.
The bob oscillates along a curved path if the simple pendulum is oscillating in a vertical plane (as shown in the figure), with a large amplitude. However, for small amplitudes, the bob approximately oscillates along a straight line, i.e., one dimensional motion.
Motion in three dimensions
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A particle moving in space has three dimensional motion.
In this type of motion, all the three rectangular coordinates change with time. The figure above illustrates this type of motion where the particle moves from A to B and the corresponding rectangular coordinates change from (x1, y1, z1) to (x2, y2, z2).
Examples of three dimensional motion are:
A bird flying in the air A kite flying in the air
