Question

Tara goes on a camel safari in Africa. She travels 5 km north, then 3 km East and 1 km north again. What distance did she cover? What was her displacement?

Answer 1

Answer:

Distance covered by Tara is 9 km.

Displacement of Tara is 6.71 km.

Explanation:

Distance is the total path length covered by a body. Here, the total path length is the sum of all the distances covered in each directions.

So, total distance is given as:

Distance, $D=5+3+1=9\ km$

Now, displacement only depends on the initial and final position of the body. Let the initial position of Tara be represented by the origin $O(0,0)$ and the final position be represented by 'C' as shown in figure. Let the north direction be positive y axis and east direction be positive x axis.

Then from the figure, the final position 'C' will be at (3,6).

Therefore, using distance formula between two points, we find the displacement as 'OC' which is given as:

$OC=\sqrt{(6-0)^2+(3-0)^2}=\sqrt{6^2+3^2}=\sqrt{36+9}=\sqrt{45}=6.71\ km$

Therefore, the displacement of Tara is 6.71 km.