Question

What is the displacement of a student who walks 12 m North, 5 m West, 3 m South,

and finally 6 m West to get to his next class?

Answer 1

When you draw all 4 of those moves, you see that he winds up 9m North and 11m West of where he started.

So the magnitude of his displacement is

D = √(9² + 11²) m²

D = √(81 + 121) m²

D = √(202) m²

D = 14.2 m

The direction is arctan(-11/9) = 50.7° west of North