What is displacement

Her position relative to Earth is given by x. The displacement of the professor relative to Earth is represented by an arrow pointing to the right. Figure 3. A passenger moves from his seat to the back of the plane. His location relative to the airplane is given by x. Notice that the arrow representing his displacement is twice as long as the arrow representing the displacement of the professor she moves twice as far in Figure 3.

Note that displacement has a direction as well as a magnitude. In one-dimensional motion, direction can be specified with a plus or minus sign. When you begin a problem, you should select which direction is positive usually that will be to the right or up, but you are free to select positive as being any direction.

Thus her displacement is. In this coordinate system, motion to the right is positive, whereas motion to the left is negative. His displacement is negative because his motion is toward the rear of the plane, or in the negative x direction in our coordinate system. Although displacement is described in terms of direction, distance is not. Distance is defined to be the magnitude or size of displacement between two positions.

Note that the distance between two positions is not the same as the distance traveled between them. Distance traveled is the total length of the path traveled between two positions.

Distance has no direction and, thus, no sign. For example, the distance the professor walks is 2. The distance the airplane passenger walks is 4. It is important to note that the distance traveled , however, can be greater than the magnitude of the displacement by magnitude, we mean just the size of the displacement without regard to its direction; that is, just a number with a unit. For example, the professor could pace back and forth many times, perhaps walking a distance of m during a lecture, yet still end up only 2.

In kinematics we nearly always deal with displacement and magnitude of displacement, and almost never with distance traveled. One way to think about this is to assume you marked the start of the motion and the end of the motion. Style: MLA. English Language Learners Definition of displacement. Medical Definition of displacement.

Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Test your vocabulary with our question quiz! Love words? Need even more definitions? Homophones, Homographs, and Homonyms The same, but different. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Nov. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Click the button to see the answer. What is the displacement of the cross-country team if they begin at the school, run 10 miles and finish back at the school?

The displacement of the runners is 0 miles. While they have covered a distance of 10 miles, they are not "out of place" or displaced.

They finish where they started. Round-trip motions always have a displacement of 0. What is the distance and the displacement of the race car drivers in the Indy ?

The displacement of the cars is somewhere near 0 miles since they virtually finish where they started. Yet the successful cars have covered a distance of miles. Physics Tutorial. My Cart Subscription Selection. Student Extras. Curriculum Corner Learning requires action. Distance is a scalar quantity that refers to "how much ground an object has covered" during its motion.