I just need to clarify something in my mind- I look at a graph and the position changes from 3 to 8 over a ten second interval, to find total displacement, I just take 8-3 would equal 5 for total displacement, correct? I don't need to bother with the time interval, correct?

Question

I just need to clarify something in my mind- I look at a graph and the position changes from 3 to 8 over a ten second interval, to find total displacement, I just take 8-3 would equal 5 for total displacement, correct? I don't need to bother with the time interval, correct?

Thank you

Answer 1

To find the total displacement, you need to consider both the initial position and the final position. In this case, you correctly subtracted the initial position (3) from the final position (8), giving you a displacement of 5 units. However, you also mentioned a time interval of ten seconds.

Displacement is a measure of how far an object has moved from its initial position. It does not depend on the time taken to make that movement. In your case, the total displacement is indeed 5 units, regardless of whether it took ten seconds or any other duration to cover that distance.

So, to answer your question, you do not need to bother with the time interval when calculating total displacement. It only affects other quantities like average velocity or speed, but not displacement alone.