Question

Take a meter scale and a long rope. Walk from one corner Of a basketball court to its opposite corner along its side. Measure the distance covered by you and magnitude of displacement. What difference would u notice between both cases

Answer 1

Walk from one corner of basketball court to another corner

let the length of the court = a meter;

Let breadth of the court = b meter;


So the distance covered by the person to reach from one corner to another corner of the basketball court is = a+b meter 

Displacement = underoot a^2+b^2

This is the total displacement by the person to reach from one corner to the other corner of a basketball court.


Displacement is less than or equal to the distance. Displacement depends on the route.

Answer 2

Given :
Let a be the length of basket ball court
Let b be the breadth of basket ball court.
Distance is defined as the total path travelled.
Hence Distance covered by the person to reach other end of basket ball court will be
= length of court+breadth of court.=a+b
Distance travelled=a+b
Displacement is the shortest distance between Source and destination.
Hence ,
Displacement will be the straight line [diagonal]as shown in the figure.
Displacement = √a²+b²

∴We notice that the displacement depends upon the route ans it is always less than or equal to distance.