Question

A cat walks 3 meters toward a laser, then jumps 5 meters due south of the laser when it

sees a thing. What is the displacement of the cat (to the nearest tenth)?

Answer 1

Displacement is 5.8 meters

Explanation:

Here, we want to calculate the displacement of the cat

When we talk of displacement, we mean distance traveled in a specified direction

To find the displacement of the cat, we calculate the distance between where the cat is now from where it started off

So to calculate this, we shall have a right angled triangle where the displacement we want to calculate will be the hypotenuse

We proceed to use Pythagoras’ theorem which states that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the two other sides

Mathematically, we have ;

D^2 = 3^2 + 5^2

D^2 = 9 + 25

D^2 = 34

D = √34

D = 5.8309

To the nearest tenth, the displacement is 5.8 meters