Physics Calculators

Two cornerstone physics calculators: average velocity from displacement and time, and Ohm's Law for voltage, current and resistance.

Two Fundamentals, Two Fields

Physics is enormous; this category currently holds two of its most-used relationships, one from mechanics and one from electricity. The velocity calculator computes average velocity from displacement and time. The Ohm's Law calculator solves for voltage, current or resistance given any two of the three.

What they have in common is being the first equation taught in their respective areas, and the ones people keep coming back to long afterwards — a first-year student checking homework and an electrician sizing a circuit are using the same relationship. More mechanics and electricity tools are natural additions; Boyle's Law currently sits in the Other category, and thermodynamics is not yet covered.

Electricity

Ohm's Law Calculatorphysics

Calculate voltage, current, or resistance using Ohm’s Law.

Motion

Velocity Calculatorphysics

Calculate the average velocity of an object using displacement and time.

Complete Physics Toolkit

You've explored all calculators across subcategories. All tools are 100% free, accurate, and regularly updated.

← Explore All Categories

The Relationships These Model

Velocity is displacement over time — and displacement is not distance. This distinction is the whole reason the tool is worth using rather than dividing in your head. Displacement is the straight-line change in position from start to finish, including direction; distance is the total path travelled. Drive 50 miles out and 50 miles back in two hours and your average speed is 50 mph, while your average velocity is exactly zero, because you ended where you started. Velocity is a vector; speed is a scalar. Physics problems that seem to give absurd answers are frequently just enforcing this difference.

Average velocity says nothing about the journey. It describes the net result over an interval, not what happened during it. An object that accelerated, stopped, and reversed can share an average velocity with one that cruised steadily. For anything about the moment rather than the interval you need instantaneous velocity, which is where calculus enters the subject.

Ohm's Law is one relationship with three faces. V = I × R, rearranged as I = V/R or R = V/I depending on what you know. Its practical power is that in any simple resistive circuit, two measured quantities give you the third without further measurement — which is why it is the first thing anyone learns with a multimeter, and why fault-finding usually starts there.

Ohm's Law is a model, and real components disobey it. It holds for ohmic conductors where resistance stays constant. Real resistance rises with temperature in most metals, and semiconductors, diodes and filament lamps are frankly non-ohmic — a bulb's cold resistance is a fraction of its hot resistance, which is precisely why filaments fail at switch-on rather than during steady use. The law is exact for the idealised case and an approximation for the messy one.

Typical Problems

Checking a kinematics answer

You worked out average velocity by hand and want to confirm before the rest of the problem builds on it — particularly on questions designed to catch the displacement-versus-distance trap.

Sizing a resistor

You know the supply voltage and the current a component needs. Ohm's Law gives the resistance required, immediately.

Diagnosing a circuit

Measured voltage and current across a component imply a resistance. If the implied value disagrees with the component's rating, you have found your fault.

Physics Calculators: Common Questions

What is the difference between speed and velocity?

Speed is total distance over time and has no direction. Velocity is displacement — net change in position — over time, and it has direction. A round trip has a positive average speed and an average velocity of zero, which catches out a great many students.

Does Ohm's Law apply to every component?

No — only to ohmic conductors whose resistance is constant. Diodes, transistors and filament lamps are non-ohmic: their resistance changes with voltage or temperature. A bulb's resistance when hot is many times its cold resistance.

Why does average velocity not describe what happened in between?

Because it only compares start and end position over elapsed time. Any number of different journeys — accelerating, stopping, reversing — can share the same average. Describing the motion at a specific instant requires instantaneous velocity.