The concept of motion is one of the philosophical categories, along with others, such as matter and time, which serve as the basis for the materialistic sciences. But we will not consider this issue so deeply now. Just see what are and what are the types of movement from the point of view of classical mechanics.
In physics, there is a special branch of mechanics - kinematics. She studies the mechanical movement and its types, and it is precisely the movement of the object that is considered without its interaction with other bodies. Changing the position of the body relative to others in a given period of time is called mechanical movement, which in Greek sounds like “kinematics”.
Movement permeated our whole life. People and animals move, rivers and air, Earth and the Sun move. It is possible that it was the initial observation of the ancient Greeks over the processes of displacement that subsequently led to the creation of such a science as physics - at least to the creation of such sections of it as mechanics and kinematics.
The following types of mechanical motion are distinguished : rotational, translational and oscillatory. Translational motion is characterized by the fact that all points of a body move in the same direction at the same distance for the same time interval. During rotational movement or rotation, any points of the object move around circles whose centers are located on a line called the axis of rotation. Vibrational movement is a movement that is periodically fully or partially repeated.
Considering the types of motion, we introduced two concepts - the movement of a point and a body. As a matter of fact, the description of the movement of the body as a whole is nothing more than a description of the movement of its various points. Therefore, it is often sufficient to characterize the movement of a point in order to understand the movement of the body itself. Translational motion is characterized by the same movement of all points of the body, so we can assume that, having examined the movement of one point, we determined how the body moves.
However, all the above types of movement are not limited. The movement may be rectilinear or curvilinear, uniform or uniformly accelerated. To describe the nature of the movement, one must again introduce a new concept - the trajectory. It can be defined as the line along which the body moves. Running a pen over the paper, we see a trace that remains behind it. This is the trajectory of the pen.
Now, with the introduction of the concept of trajectory, you can take a closer look at the previously noted types of movement. So, with translational motion, the trajectories of different points may be different, but they remain parallel to themselves. An example is the body (but not the wheels) of a car moving straight. The movement of a needle in a sewing machine or a piston in a motor cylinder are other examples of translational motion.
The concept of trajectory provides an explanation of rectilinear and curvilinear motion. If the trajectory is a straight line, then this movement is linear, if not, then it is curved. As an example of rotational curvilinear motion, we can cite the rotation of the Earth. The rotation will not be a forward movement.
Of course, all of the above is only part of what needs to be considered by touching on the topic “Types of Movement”. For a complete description of the nature of the movement, it is necessary to introduce new concepts - such as speed, distance traveled, reference system. Then it will be possible to understand in more detail the nature of the movement of both a single point and the body as a whole. But even the cited material allows a little glimpse into the many-sided world of movement.
The article considers the types of motion accepted in classical physics, gives examples of their different types and describes the distinguishing features.