Question

A person walks 500m due north, turns and walks 300m due west, and finally walks 800m due south. Determine the persons resultant displacement from her starting point.

Answer 1

+500 because North is postiive direction

-300 because if you see it as a graph, left side is negative

-800 because South is downward

500-300-800 = -600

displacement is a vector, meaning it has both DIRECTION and magnitude

(literally the only physics problem i can easily solve lol)

Answer 2

`\mid D \mid = 424.26\ m`

Step-by-step explanation:

Displacement

Suppose a moving object starts from point A and travels through a determined path to point B. The distance is the sum of all the partial distances traveled, and the displacement is the vector directed from A to B.

The path of the person is shown in the image below. Note the 500 m due north and the 800 m due south produce a distance of 300 m due south. The displacement vector D is the resultant of the whole movement.

To find the magnitude of the displacement, we need to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle of sides 300 m (already described) and 300 m, marked in red.

The magnitude of D is:

`\mid D \mid = √(300^2+300^2)`

`\mid D \mid = √(90000+90000)`

`\mid D \mid = √(180000)`

`\mid D \mid = 424.26\ m`