What is the entire path an object travels?

Answer 1

The length of the path an object travels is distance. The shortest distance between the initial and final positions is displacement.

Answer 2

This length is called "distance." It can be tricky for beginning physics students to distinguish between the concepts of "distance" and "displacement." Displacement is the length of the straight line from the starting position of the object to the end position of the object. Distance is a scalar value (meaning in this case that it is not sensitive to direction) and displacement is a vector (meaning it has both magnitude and direction). This means that no matter what the path you travel might be, the length of the path is the distance travelled. Displacement is only determined by the beginning and end positions of the object, so the path of travel can be ignored as long as those two positions are known.

Here is an example of what the distinction means. Let's say you walk in a big circle one time, so that you start walking and stop walking at the exact same spot. The distance you traveled is the circumference of the circle. Your displacement is zero, because all that matters are the beginning and ending positions, which are at the same point. You cannot draw a straight line from one point to itself.

If you were to walk in a straight line for one mile, your distance travelled and your displacement would both be one mile. In other words, if the route is a straight line, distance and displacement are the same, except that displacement also refers to the direction of travel. The distance would always be "one mile" in this example, but the displacement could be "one mile north", "one mile southeast", etc.

Answer 3

Distance

Answer 4

Distance:)

Answer 5

distance