asked 60.2k views
2 votes
A truck travels to and from a store quarry that is located 2.5 km to the east. what is its distance? What is its displacement

asked
User MihZR
by
8.8k points

2 Answers

4 votes
Distance and displacement are quite different from one another. Distance is the sum of the lengths of all the legs of a trip. Here, that would be 2.5 km + 2.5 km = 5.0 km.

Displacement, on the other hand, is the distance, with direction, of the change in position (if any) between original location and final location.

Here, that's 2.5 km east plus 2.5 km west. Due to the "east" and "west," you must subtract 2.5 km from the original west-to-east distance. The resultant is zero. The displacement is zero.

Draw a number line. Plot x=0. Now draw an arrow from x=0 2.5 km to the right (east). Now turn around and move 2.5 km to the left (west). You'll end up at your starting point. So: your displacement is zero.
answered
User Arun Prakash
by
8.2k points
3 votes
distance - how far it's travelled.

displacement - how far it is from its starting point in a given direction.

distance = 2.5km
displacement = 2.5km east
answered
User Mia
by
7.0k points
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