Final answer:
The displacement is zero for the honey bee's round trip since it returns to the original starting point, making it different from the distance traveled, which is 2 km. Displacement is a vector quantity involving both magnitude and direction, whereas distance is a scalar quantity concerned only with magnitude.
Step-by-step explanation:
The displacement for a honey bee leaving the hive and then returning is not the same as the distance traveled. The correct answer to the question is b) No, because displacement is a vector quantity that includes direction, while distance is a scalar quantity that only considers magnitude. When the bee returns to the hive, the displacement is zero because the start and end points are the same, regardless of the path taken or the total distance covered. However, the distance traveled is the total length of the path that the bee has flown, in this case, 2 km.
Displacement is a vector quantity as it has both magnitude and direction. For example, if the bee had ended its journey 2 km to the North of the hive, we would describe the displacement as 2 km North. The magnitude of the displacement is the straight-line distance between the starting and ending points, which can also be seen as the length of the displacement vector.
On the other hand, distance is a scalar quantity because it only involves the magnitude, which is how far the bee has flown, without any consideration of its direction. Even if the bee makes several loops before returning, the distance is simply the total length of its travel path, and since it has no direction associated with it, distance cannot cancel itself out as displacement can.