A car drives 90 meters north, then turns around and drives 120 meters south. What was its displacement and distance?

displacement= 30 m towards south, distance= 210m

Explanation:

Distance (scalar quantity) how much ground an object has covered.

Displacement (vector quantity) refers to how far out of place an object is it is the object's overall change in position.

Basically meaning for displacement the directions will be very key

D for Displacement

D= D1+D2

D=  120 (S) + 90 m (N)

Must be in same direction

D= 120 (S) + (-90 m) (S)

D= 30 m (S)

and for distance you are simply just adding how much distance they have covered

so d= d1+d2

d= 90m + 120m

d= 210m

see the picture for the vector

the magnitude of the vector by pythagorean theorem

r = √( (-10)^2 + (3)^2 ) = √109

magnitude = √109 units

the direction angle between vector and x-axis is

tan^(-1)(3/10) = 16.699

so the direction is approximately 16.7 degrees north of west

well clustered together.

points close on a scatter diagram