YOU ARE LEARNING:
Distance vs Displacement
Distance vs Displacement
Distance is how far you've gone. Displacement is how far you've ultimately moved.
A quick question to get started: which option best describes what distance is?
Which of these two cars has travelled the furthest distance? Car A or Car B?
Which of the two cars ended up furthest away from its starting point?
Now have a look at this image. Which two statements below are true?
You can select multiple answers
Pick the object with the biggest displacement.
True or false? Distance is how far an object has travelled in a straight line to a given destination.
To recap! Distance is how far an object has travelled in total, whereas displacement is how far the object ultimately ends up from its starting point.
You measure displacement in a straight line.
Pick the three options that are true.
You can select multiple answers
Vectors and Scalars
So distance is the total path taken of an object to get to a certain point. Do you think the direction of travel matters?
A scalar quantity is one which describes only the magnitude of something. A vector quantity is one which describes the magnitude and direction of something. What is distance?
Does direction matter for displacement?
What is displacement?
Displacement is a vector quantity which means it takes into account direction as well as magnitude.
This means that if an object has travelled backwards, the displacement will be negative.
An example
What is the distance travelled from point A to point D?
What is the displacement from point A to point D?
Summary!
Distance is a scalar quantity.
It describes total distance an object has moved.
Displacement is a vector quantity.
It describes how far away from its starting point the object ends up, measured in a straight line.
Distance is not necessarily larger than displacement.
For example, if an object simply moved 3 metres in a straight line, the object's distance and displacement would be the same (3 metres).
