• This applet demonstrates some of the practical applications of differentiation i.e. the calculation of displacements, velocities and accelerations of any object you can think of.
• There are many example of such cases: cars, spacecraft, bullets, balls. In fact anything that moves.
• To calculate the displacement, velocity and acceleration of a body simply enter the equation that defines the movement of the body.
• For example a car may move according to the following equation:

                                                    y = x^2 + 3x + 8

                                Where y is the displacement of the car at time x (x in seconds)

• So from this equation we can see that at x = 1 second the car will have traveled 12 meters. In 2 second the car will have traveled 18 meters etc.
• If we differentiated this equation we get the rate of change of displacement(y) with respect to time(x) i.e. velocity
• If we differentiate again we get the rate of change velocity with respect to time i.e. acceleration.