Question

Micheal runs 8m, South then turns around and runs 12m North. what is the distance and displacement covered?

Answer 1

Answers:

• Distance = 20 meters
• Displacement = 4 meters North

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Explanation:

To find the distance traveled, we add the two values to get 8+12 = 20 meters.

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For the displacement, I recommend drawing a vertical number line. Mark the values 0, -8 and 4 on the number line. Going from 0 to -8 represents going 8 meters south. From -8, move up 12 units and you should arrive at 4 on the number line, which represents being 4 meters north of the original position 0. The displacement only cares about the start and end points, more specifically, the change between the two. The direction is also important for the displacement.

In other words, Michael started at 0, did a bunch of movements, and ended up at 4 on the number line. So we can simplify all those movements to one single movement of "move north 4 meters" to represent the displacement.

As you can see, it's possible to get a displacement of 0 meters, which is not the case for the distance traveled in the previous section.