A cart travels 4 meters east and then 4 meters north. How do you determine the magnitude of the cart's resultant displacement?
1 Answer
Mar 7, 2016
Explanation:
Adjust to the bad drawing, but this is the representation of your movement. 4m eastwards and then 4 m northwards.
It is basically a right angled triangle.
The hypotenuse is the "net displacement" that you seek. Using the Pythagoras theorem, we get
So, that means
Simple really.