Question

Mrs. Smith walks from her house 11.2 m to the grocer. Then she walks from the grocer 5.7 m to the pet store. Then she walks 32.7 m from the pet store to her daughter's house. Mrs. Smith's house is directly 23.5 m away from her daughter's house. If the trip took 17 minutes, what was the average velocity of Mrs. Smith?

Answer 1

Average velocity is defined as the ratio of displacement and time

Here we know that the total distance is the sum of all given distances but we need the displacement in order to find the velocity

So here displacement is straight line distance or direct distance from her home to her daughter home

It is given as 23.5 m

and it took total time of 17 minutes

so average velocity is

$v = \frac{displacement}{time}$

$v = \frac{23.5}{17\times 60}$

$v = 0.023 m/s$

So average velocity of Mrs Smith is 0.023 m/s