If a man travels 2 km towards east and returns back 1 km. What is the displacement?.
1km East.
Please advice how it is east when the man is travelling west. Thank you.
The traveled 2km East, then 1km West. Net displacment is 1kmEast
Plz advise for this whether you have used displacement= final position - initial position
Displacement = 1 - 0
To find the displacement, we need to find the straight-line distance between the starting and ending points of the man's travel.
In this case, the man travels 2 km towards the east, so his starting point is 0 km, and his ending point is 2 km towards the east. When he returns back 1 km, he ends up 1 km towards the west.
To calculate the straight-line distance or displacement, we can use the Pythagorean theorem for a right-angled triangle, where the two sides are the horizontal and vertical components of the displacement:
Displacement = √(horizontal component)^2 + (vertical component)^2
In this case, the horizontal component is the distance towards the east (2 km) minus the distance towards the west (1 km), which is 2 km - 1 km = 1 km. The vertical component is 0 km since there is no movement in the vertical direction.
Plugging these values into the formula, we get:
Displacement = √(1 km)^2 + (0 km)^2 = √(1 km)^2 = √1 km^2 = 1 km
Therefore, the displacement of the man is 1 km.