A golfer takes two putts to sink his ball in the hole once he is on the green. The first putt displaces the ball 2.20 m east, and the second putt displaces it 6.58 m south.
What displacement would put the ball in
the hole in one putt?
Well, if the golfer wants to put the ball in the hole in one putt, I'd suggest using a teleportation device! It would save a lot of time and effort. But in all seriousness, to calculate the displacement in one putt, you would need to find the resultant displacement by adding the eastward and southward displacements together. So, using some geometry and the Pythagorean theorem, the resultant displacement would be approximately 6.89 meters in a direction that is somewhere between southeast and east-southeast. Just remember, while physics can help with calculations, it can't fix a bad slice!
To find the displacement that would put the ball in the hole in one putt, we need to add up the displacements from the two putts.
The first putt displaces the ball 2.20 m east. Since east is a positive direction, we can represent this displacement as +2.20 m.
The second putt displaces the ball 6.58 m south. Since south is a negative direction, we can represent this displacement as -6.58 m.
To find the total displacement, we can add the displacements from the two putts together:
Total displacement = (2.20 m) + (-6.58 m)
To simplify, we need to combine the positive and negative signs, so we get:
Total displacement = 2.20 m - 6.58 m
To subtract, we can change it to addition with the negative number:
Total displacement = 2.20 m + (-6.58 m)
This gives us:
Total displacement = -4.38 m
Therefore, to sink the ball in the hole in one putt, the golfer would need to displace the ball 4.38 m to the south.