Question

The tortoise and hare ran a race. The hare's total displacement of both runs together before and after he fell asleep was 13 m east and 4 m north. If the hare took 31 minutes to complete the race, including his nap, what was his average velocity in meters per second

Answer 1

magnitude: 0.00731 m/s; direction: 17.1 north of east

gradpoint

Answer 2

The hare's final displacement is given by the Pythagorean theorem as
√((13 m)² + (4 m)²) ≈ 13.601 m

The time it took to get there was (31 min)*(60 s/min) = 1860 seconds.

The direction was arctan(4/13) ≈ 17.1° north of east.

The hare's average velocity was (13.601 m)/(1860 s) on a bearing of 72.9°.
0.00731 m/s ∠72.9°

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Velocity is a vector quantity having both speed and direction. Here, we choose to express the direction as a bearing measured clockwise from North.