LogFAQs > #979915434

Tyranthraxus posted...

Nope. It will still apply acceleration in order to resist the various other forces that are trying to slow you down. Relatively this would result in a derivative of zero, but that's only because forces external to the vehicle are applying acceleration in the opposite direction.

See above, only difference is that now the accelerator is not applying enough acceleration to maintain equilibrium so you result in a negative derivative.

Nah, this is a common misunderstanding. Force is not equal to mass times acceleration; Net force is equal to mass times acceleration. That is to say, two opposing forces don't have their own acceleration components that cancel out; the forces cancel out and the difference is proportional to acceleration.

Acceleration is the change in velocity. If the vehicle isn't changing its velocity, it's not accelerating, despite what forces may be pushing it.

This does mean that an object that is colloquially decelerating is technically accelerating, so you could argue the only exception is when you've reached the equilibrium speed for the amount of power you're applying, current mass, air friction, etc.