Question

What are some examples of displacement.

Answer 1

Hint: The displacement of a body is defined as the change in position of the body with respect to a reference point. The reference point can be the initial position of the body of or origin in a Cartesian coordinate system. Using this condition one can frame an example of a body changing its position.

Complete step-by-step solution:
The displacement of a body is equal to the difference between the initial point and the final point of the position of the body.
In a racing car contest the car moves from the starting point to the finish line. In the process let us say the initial point as the reference point. Since the car moved from starting to the end point there is some appreciable amount of distance covered with respect to the reference. Therefore the car got displaced by the distance between the initial and the ending point.
Another example could be the horizontal motion of projectiles in space. When a projectile is projected at some angle it covers some distance along the horizontal i.e. range with respect to the point of projection along the horizontal. Hence the body got displaced that is equal to the range of the projectile.
Let us consider a trolley moving in a circular path. When the trolley covers half the circumference, with respect to the initial point of the journey it would cover a distance pie times the radius ‘r’ of the circle and would be at a distance of 2r from the initial point. Hence the displacement of the body will be equal to 2r.

Note: The SI unit of displacement is meters. The distance covered a body cannot be equal to zero whereas the displacement of a body is zero. This is because the displacement is the difference between the initial and the starting point and hence if the body comes back to the same point, the displacement is zero. An example of this can be the vertical motion of the projectile.