In article , Gary Coffman says...

OK, I managed to get a copy of halliday and resnick and
looking it over, it looks like they use the term "speed"
when calculating 1/2 mv(squared), not the vector velocity.

I don't think so, see below.

Yes, this is how it's derived for a 101 level
physics course. They don't go into detail of
why they do it this way, and they don't discuss
the rapid shift from vectors to scalars, but
this is how it is taught.

Jim

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