Question

June starts out hiking due south and travels 4.50 km. When she comes to a canyon running east to west, she turns due east and travels 12.0 km before stopping for the night. What is the magnitude of her displacement

Answer 1

The Pythagorean theorem can be used to find the straight-line distance between the starting point and an ending point that is 4.5 km south and 12.0 km east of there.

d² = 4.5² + 12.0² = 20.25 + 144.0 = 164.25

d = √164.25 ≈ 12.816 . . . km