On this day in physics: 08 January 1942 Happy Birthday to Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist and cosmologist best known for his work on black holes and for authoring the popular-science book A Brief History of Time. He also holds the once Newton-seated Luciasian Professorship at Cambridge University. (Source).
Word of the day: Acceleration is the rate at which an object in motion is changing its velocity, or how fast it is changing its change in position. It is typically described mathematically as a(t), or x''(t), pronounced x "double prime". The double prime notation is to indicate that it is the second derivative of position, or the change, or the derivative of velocity. Acceleration has units of length per second per second, or length per second squared. Humans are very sensitive to changes in acceleration. Massive objects create accelerations towards them because of their gravity. Because earthbound items are being accelerated towards the center of the earth at 9.81 m/s^2 when airborne, the acceleration due to gravity on earth is given the abbreviation g.
Killer Resource: A Brief History of Time. The most popular book written by our birthday boy above.
Keywords: Position, Kinematics, Acceleration, Physics, Podcast, Derivative
