A lecturer paces back and forth while teaching, walking 150 m in total, yet she finishes 2.0 m to the right of where she began. What are her distance travelled and her displacement?
ADistance 2.0 m and displacement +150 m
BDistance 150 m and displacement +150 m
CDistance 150 m and displacement +2.0 m
DDistance 300 m and displacement +2.0 m
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. Distance 150 m and displacement +2.0 m
1. Distance travelled is the total length of the path, so it is 150 m.
2. Displacement depends only on the start and finish marks, so it is +2.0 m.
3. Distance travelled can be much greater than the magnitude of the displacement.
4. Swapping the two values treats a path length as a change in position, which it is not.
5. Doubling the path length to 300 m has no basis, since 150 m is already the total walked.
_Source: OpenStax College Physics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Kinematics", section 2.1 Displacement_
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