Physics · Glossary

What is Reference frame; position; trajectory?

Definition 11.1 University Physics — Year 1 · Chapter 11 — Kinematics of a Point

A reference frame is a rigid body taken as fixed (the laboratory, the Earth, a train), together with a clock. A point particle MM — a body whose size is irrelevant to the motion studied — is located at each instant by its position vector OM(t)\vect{OM}(t) from an origin OO attached to the frame; the curve described by MM is its trajectory. Motion is always motion relative to a frame: the same passenger is at rest in the train and moving in the station.

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