Question

Omar is in Social Studies class when he realizes that he needs a book for his research paper. Omar walks 36 meters to the library to pick up a book. Omar then

walks 70 meters to the cafeteria and back to his Social Studies class. What was Omar's displacement?

Answer 1

Displacement is a vector quantity that represents the overall change in position of an object. It is not the same as distance, which is the total length of a path traveled.

In this case, Omar starts in his Social Studies class and walks to the library and back, and then to the cafeteria and back. The direction and magnitude of his displacement can be determined by taking the difference between his final position and his initial position.

To find the displacement of Omar, we need to find the final position of him after his walk back to his Social Studies class.

Since the direction of his walk is not important in this case, we can only use the magnitude of the distance.

So we can find the total distance traveled by adding:

36 + 70 + 70 = 176 m

So the displacement of Omar is 176 meters towards his Social Studies class.

Explanation: