Question

Kayla starts at -3, walks 5 blocks right and 3 blocks left. What is her displacement?

Answer 1

Answer: The displacement is 1 block.

Explanation:

Let's define:

The right is the positive side.

The left is the negative side.

Then if you start at position A, and you walk N blocks to the right, the new position is:

A + N

And if you start at position A, and you walk M blocks to the left, the new position is:

A - M.

In this case, we know that Kayla starts at -3 and she walks 5 blocks to the right.

Then her new position is:

-3 + 5 = 2

Now she walks 3 blocks to the left, then her new position is:

2 - 3 = -1

The displacement will be equal to the difference between the final position (-1) and the initial position (-2)

Then the displacement is:

D = -1 - (-2) = -1 +2 = 1

The displacement is 1 block.