Distance and Displacement
Helpful before this lesson
- Not completed: Position and Reference Frames
These topics can make this lesson easier, but you can start now.
Learning Objectives
- Students will be able to distinguish between distance and displacement
- Students will understand that displacement is a vector quantity
- Students will calculate displacement from position changes
Core Concepts
- Distance: total path length traveled (scalar)
- Displacement: change in position (vector)
- Path taken doesn't affect displacement, only endpoints do