Question

Suppose that John lives on a square block that is 200 meters per side, and in the evenings, he walks with his dog around the block for a little exercise. If John walks once around the block, what distance does he travel? _m If John walks once around the block back to his house, what is his final displacement? _m

Answer 1

John walks a distance of 800 meters around the block, but his final displacement is zero meters since he returns to his starting point.

Step-by-step explanation:

If John walks once around his square block, the distance he travels is the perimeter of the square. Since each side of the square is 200 meters, the perimeter (total distance around the square) would be 4 sides multiplied by the length of each side.

Distance = 4 × 200 meters = 800 meters

If John returns to his starting point, his final displacement is zero meters because displacement is a vector quantity that measures the shortest path from the initial position to the final position, and in this case, John ends up where he started.