Question

The basketball coach tells his team to run sprints back and forth across the court, which is 30 m long. They start at the left end of the court, run back and forth 6 times, then end back at the left end of the court where they began.

What distance did they run?
What is their displacement?

Answer 1

Distance is the total length of an object's path. Displacement is the overall change in position, ie. how far an object is from its initial position.

The court is 30 m long, so a path going back and forth once is 60 m long. Going along this path 6 times totals 360 m.

The end point is the same as the starting point, so the displacement is 0 m.