Distance and Displacement 8th and 9th grade

 

Welcome back to our Blog

The topic for today is Distance and Displacement

Let start remembering the definition of these two magnitudes

Distance is how far an object travels. Distance does not depend on direction. Distance is represented with a lower case d. Distance (d). For calculate distance we add all the sections of the travel.

Displacement is the difference between an object´s final position and its initial position. Displacement does depend on direction. In displacement we need to indicate the direction of the movement, examples of directions right-left, up-down, and N, S, E, W. Displacement is represented ΔX. For calculate displacement we use the following formula

ΔX= Xfinal –Xinitial.

We invite you to solve the following problems about distance and displacement

 

1.    Calculate distance and displacement for each one of the following situations

1. Derrick crawls 4 meter then turns 90 degrees and crawls 6 meters.

2. Ray runs 30 kilometer north, 30 kilometers west, and then 30 kilometers south.

3. Jamison turns around 5 times.

4. Cassidee walks 1.5 kilometer then turns 90 degrees and walks 2 kilometer.

5. Taja walks twelve meters from her door to the park, then returns home to her door.

6. Sandy ran 3 blocks north, and then 2 blocks west.

7. Neva swam 3 complete laps in a 50 meter pool. ( 1 lap is to the other side and back)

 

2.    While John is traveling along a straight interstate highway, he notices that the mile marker reads 260.  John travels until he reaches the 150-mile marker and then retraces his path to the 175-mile marker.  What is John’s displacement from the 260-mile marker?     

 

3.    A physics book is moved once around the perimeter of a table of dimensions 1.0m by 2.0 m. a. If the book ends up in its initial position, what is its displacement?    

          b. What is the distance traveled? 

 

4.    Joey drivers his Skidoo 7km north. He stops for lunch and the drives 5km east. What distance did he cover? What was his displacement?

 

5.    Anthony walks to the pizza place for lunch. He walks 1km east, the 1km south and then 1km east again. What distance did he cover? What was his displacement?

 

6.    Neil pogo sticks to his science class. He travels 8m east then 4m north. What distance did he cover? What was his displacement?

 

Show in a millimeter page the displacement´s diagram for each problem.