Describing Motion with Words Visit The Physics Classroom's
Flickr Galleries and take a visual overview of 1D Kinematics.
Distance and Displacement Distance and displacement are two
quantities that may seem to mean the same thing yet have
distinctly different definitions and meanings. - Distance is a
scalar quantity that refers to "how much ground an object has
covered" during its motion. - Displacement is a vector quantity
that refers to "how far out of place an object is"; it is the
object's overall change in position. To test your understanding
of this distinction, consider the motion depicted in the diagram
below. A physics teacher walks 4 meters East, 2 meters South, 4
meters West, and finally 2 meters North. Even though the physics
teacher has walked a total distance of 12 meters, her
displacement is 0 meters. During the course of her motion, she
has "covered 12 meters of ground" (distance = 12 m). Yet when
she is finished walking, she is not "out of place" - i.e., there
is no displacement for her motion