If you walk 2 km from your home to a store and then back home, what is your displacement?
You are where you started
the vector from where you started to where you finished is
ZERO
displacement is NOTdistance
To find the displacement, we need to consider the overall change in position from the starting point to the ending point, regardless of the path taken. In this case, since you walked 2 km from your home to the store and then back home, your displacement would be considered zero.
To calculate it, you can imagine a coordinate system where your home is the origin (0,0). When you walk 2 km to the store, you move 2 km in a certain direction (let's say to the east). So, your position with respect to your home is now (2,0). When you walk back home, you move 2 km in the opposite direction (to the west), and your position returns to the origin, which is (0,0). Therefore, the overall change in position is zero, resulting in a displacement of zero.
Keep in mind that displacement is different from distance traveled. Displacement considers the change in position from the starting point to the ending point, while distance traveled considers the total length of the entire journey. In this scenario, your distance traveled would be 4 km (2 km to the store + 2 km back home), but your displacement is zero.