What is the difference between position and displacement?
Would the only difference be that position is a scalar and displacement is a vector?
Not distance, sorry I messed up on that.
position is a point. displacement is a vector.
The difference between position and displacement is not only that position is a scalar and displacement is a vector, but also in how they are defined and measured.
Position refers to the location of an object or point relative to a reference point or origin. It is a scalar quantity because it only has magnitude, which indicates the distance or length from the reference point, but does not specify the direction.
Displacement, on the other hand, is a vector quantity that describes the change in position of an object from its initial position to its final position. Displacement includes both magnitude (the straight-line distance between the two positions) and direction (the straight-line path from the initial point to the final point).
To calculate displacement, you would subtract the initial position vector from the final position vector. This difference gives you the change in position, or displacement vector.
In summary, position represents the location of an object with respect to a reference point, while displacement represents the change in position and includes magnitude and direction. Position is a scalar, while displacement is a vector.