While John is traveling along a straight interstate highway, he notices that the mile marker reads 249 km. John travels until he reaches the 141 km marker and then retraces his path to the 174 km marker. What is John's resultant displacement from the 249 km marker? Answer in units of km.

Question

Cameron Robinson

Physics

24 August, 17:45

While John is traveling along a straight interstate highway, he notices that the mile marker reads 249 km. John travels until he reaches the 141 km marker and then retraces his path to the 174 km marker. What is John's resultant displacement from the 249 km marker? Answer in units of km.

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Kelsie Fitzgerald · Answer 1

Displacement can be displayed as a vector, this because it has magnitud and direction. Because of this, we can think John's Resultant Displacement as the join of this two vectors.

The First Vector is from the 249 Km Marker to the 141 Km Marker, which give us a Vector with a Magnitude equals to 108 Km.

The Second Vector goes from 141 Km Marker to the 174 Km Marker, which give us a Vector with a Magnitude equals to 33 Km.

However is important to know the direction for each Vector, we notice that John was traveling on one direction and then he returned. This makes our Vector to have a different direction, and this means difference signs. Difference signs means substraction. So, the Third Vector will be:

Third Vector = 108 Km - 33 Km

Third Vector = 75 Km