The magnitude is the total displacement and the direction is an arrow pointing from the initial location to the final location.Ī common example is giving a friend directions from their house to yours. A vector gives us the magnitude and a direction. These two pieces of information, when used together, form what is called a vector.
Sometimes we want to specify not just the total displacement, but also the direction of the displacement. We have to go over a bridge and along a winding road, so the distance we’ve traveled is three miles, even though our displacement is less. But our car’s odometer says we traveled three miles. For example, it’s two miles to grandma’s house if we went directly through the forest on a straight path. It is a measure of displacement that takes the path into account by breaking the path into tiny pieces. Determining Total Distanceīut what if you want total distance? A car’s odometer tells us how far the car has traveled in total. The world record doesn’t care about how high off the ground she was it only considers her starting and final positions. The jump was a straight line across the ground, but she jumped over the ground in an arc. Her initial position is a line she runs to and begins her jump from.
Displacement Example 2Īnother example is Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s world record long jump. All the skiers took different paths to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, but their displacement is exactly the same. We consider the top of the mountain the initial position and the bottom of the mountain the final position. This last skier sees that the slope is a lot steeper than she thought, so she takes the lift back down. This skier loves going as fast as possible, so he zips straight down from the ski lift to the bottom. One skier really likes adventure, so she zigs and zags all around the mountain as she skis down the hill. A group of skiers will start at the top of the mountain. Similarly, displacement tells us the shortest distance from an initial location to a final location. Sometimes we call displacement an “as the crow flies” measurement, meaning a crow flies directly from one place to another using the shortest path possible. We only need to know where we started and where we ended up. The most important part of displacement is noting that the path we take to get from one location to another does not matter.
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