Question

Scott travels north 2 miles and then goes west 5 miles before coming straight back south 7 miles what is his displacement

Answer 1

Displacement is 5√2 miles

Step-by-step explanation:

From south, Scott travelled 2 miles north and then 5 miles west then he came back south by 7 miles.

I've attached a diagram to indicate Scott's path travelled

Now, displacement is a vector quantity that tells us the overall change in position by Scott i.e distance from his initial position to his current final position while distance is a scalar quantity and tells us how much ground Scott covered in his motion over the entire trip.

Now, from the attached image, the displacement is denoted by "d".

d can be found from pythagoras theorem.

Thus;

d² = 5² + 5²

d = √50

d = 5√2 miles