Question

An ant carries a morsel of food 4.26 meters along a straight path to his nest. He then turns around and follows the path back to the source of the food. What is his displacement when he arrives back at the food source?

Answer 1

The displacement is zero. The most important concept to understand is the difference between displacement and total distance traveled. Total distance traveled would be tracking the length of the entire path the ant walked for the whole time (4.26m x 2). Displacement is how far from a designated origin (here, the food source) the ant ended up at the end of the time. Mathematically, the ant walked 4.26m from food source to nest (+4.26m) and then walked from the nest to food source (-4.26m), so the net displacement is [+4.26] + [-4.26] = 0m.