Question

Katie walks 2 ft forward and 5 ft backwards. Find her displacement traveled.

Answer 1

To find Katie's displacement traveled, subtract the backward displacement from the forward displacement. Katie's displacement traveled is 7 ft in the forward direction.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the displacement traveled by Katie, we need to consider both the forward and backward movements. Since displacement is a vector quantity that includes both magnitude and direction, we need to subtract the displacement for the backward movement from the displacement for the forward movement.

Forward displacement: 2 ft (since Katie walks 2 ft forward)

Backward displacement: -5 ft (since Katie walks 5 ft backwards)

To find the total displacement, we subtract the backward displacement from the forward displacement:

Total displacement = Forward displacement - Backward displacement = 2 ft - (-5 ft) = 2 ft + 5 ft = 7 ft.

Therefore, Katie's displacement traveled is 7 ft in the forward direction.

Answer 2

Step-by-step explanation:

It is given that, Katie walks 2 ft forward and 5 ft backwards. We need to find her displacement traveled.

The difference between final position and the initial position is equal to displacement. It is the shorted path covered.

Let forward is +x and backward is -x

Initial position of Katie = +2 ft

Final position of Katie = -5 ft

Displacement = final position - initial position

= -5 - 2

Displacement = -7 ft

So, her displacement is 7 feet in backward direction.