Question

A girl and a boy are riding on a merry-go-round that is turning at a constant rate. the girl is near the outer edge, and the boy is closer to the center. who has greater angular displacement?

Answer 1

Both have equal angular displacement.

Step-by-step explanation:

Angular displacement in rotational motion is analogous to displacement in linear motion. It is the measure of angle in radians moved by a point about an axis.

In the given question, both girl and boy are riding same merry-go-round which is turning at a constant rate. Both would move the same angular displacement in a given time. This is because angular displacement does not depends on the distance from the axis of rotation.

Answer 2

In order to clearly qualify this problem, we use relationships between linear displacement (x) and angular displacement (theta). The relationship would be, x= r*theta, where r is the radius. From here, you can deduce that the smaller the radius, the larger the angular displacement. Hence, the boy that is closer to the center would experience greater angular displacement.