What are the difference between distance and displacement?
1 Answer
Displacement is measured as the distance from a given point, while "distance" is just the total length traveled in a journey.
Explanation:
One can also say that displacement is a vector as we often say that we have a displacement in
For example, if I start at point A as a reference and move 50m east, and then 50m west, what is my displacement?
-> 0m. With reference to point A, I have not moved, so my displacement from point A has remained unchanged. Therefore it is also possible to have a negative displacement, depending on what direction you deem positive. In the example I gave, the west was my "negative" direction.
However, my distance traveled, in this case, would be 100m as that corresponds to the total distance I have moved. Therefore we can say that distance is a scalar, while displacement is a vector. However, you cannot have a negative distance travelled, unlike having a negative displacement.- It would not make sense to move -50 meters! Displacement gets away with this as we can decide which direction is "negative" with reference to a given point.
Hopefully, this makes the distinction clearer.
