Question

4. A hiker leaves camp and using a compass walks 4 km East, 6 km South, 3 km East, 5 km North, 10 km West, 8 km North and 3 km South. What is his total displacement?

Answer 1

Because the hiker walked directly west and then directly north the two legs of the hike forms a right triangle. Therefore we can use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve this problem.

c=5

The hiker is 5km from camp and should head in a generally south-east direction