Question

On a fishing trip Justin rides in a boat 12 km south. The fish aren't biting so they go 4 km west. They then follow a school of fish 1 km north. What is his total displacement?

Answer 1

The displacement is 11.7 km

Explanation:

The displacement is the vector sum from the start point to the end point. Vector addition is applying the formula of the distance between two points.. We will use this formula:

`d=\sqrt[]{(x_2-x^{^{}}_1)^2+(y_2-y_1)^2^{}}`

To better understand the exercise, we will draw a picture of the situation, it would look like this:

Replacing the points (-4, -11) and (0, 0)

`\begin{gathered} d=\sqrt[]{(-4-0^{}^{}_{})^2+(-11_{}-0_{})^2} \\ d=\sqrt[]{16+121^{}} \\ d=\sqrt[]{137} \\ d=11.7 \end{gathered}`