FHSST Physics/Rectilinear Motion/Definition

What is rectilinear motion?

Rectilinear motion means motion along a straight line. This is a useful topic to study for learning how to describe the movement of cars along a straight road or of trains along straight railway tracks. In this section you have only two directions to worry about: (1) along the direction of motion, and (2) opposite to the direction of motion.

To illustrate this imagine a train heading east.

If it is accelerating away from the station platform (P), the direction of acceleration is the same as the direction of the train's velocity — east. If it is braking the direction of acceleration is opposite to the direction of its motion, i.e. west.