In an airplane, do you travel more distance in the same amount of time, the higher up you fly? In theory, at higher altitudes you have to travel a greater distance to cover the same distance on the ground because the earth is round.

At higher altitudes, the air density is lower than at sea level. Because of the progressive reduction in air density, as the aircraft’s altitude increases its true airspeed is progressively greater than its indicated airspeed.

People sometimes think that distance and displacement are just different names for the same quantity. However, distance and displacement are different concepts. If an object changes direction in its journey, the total distance traveled will be greater than the displacement between those two points.

If we know how far away it is, we can work out how much energy it is actually generating, which will help us to understand the Physics of what makes it work. Differences between objects. Two objects might look different but actually be very similar, but with one further away than the other.

1. Notation, Terminology, Definitions

Why the Distinction Matters Both distance and speed are scalar quantities, so they are naturally found together. Displacement is needed to find the ​final position​ of an object; it tells not only the distance from the starting position, but also the net direction of travel.

Distance is a scalar quantity as it only depends upon the magnitude and not the direction. Displacement is a vector quantity as it depends upon both magnitude and direction. The distance can be measured along a non-straight path. Displacement can only be measured along a straight path.

Both are equal to each other if the motion of the object is in a straight line and that too in a single direction). The dimensions for distance and displacement both are the same….Distance and Displacement.

No because the displacement of an object can be either equal to or less than the distance travelled by the object.

Distance and displacement are different quantities, but they are related. Since the displacement is measured along the shortest path between two points, its magnitude is always less than or equal to the distance.

No, the magnitude of the displacement is always less than or equal to the distance traveled. If two displacements in the same direction are added, then the magnitude of their sum will be equal to the distance traveled.

Explanation: 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.

The amount of space between two points, measured along the minimum path which connects them, is called displacement. Distance is nothing but the length of the total route travelled by the object during motion. On the other hand, displacement is the least distance between starting and finishing point.

Whereas displacement is defined by both direction and magnitude, distance is defined only by magnitude. Displacement is an example of a vector quantity. Distance is an example of a scalar quantity. A vector is any quantity with both magnitude and direction.

The speed of an object is the distance the object travels in one unit of time. To calculate the speed of an object, divide the distance the object travels by the amount of time it takes to travel that distance.

A reference point is important in determining motion because in order to say that something is moving, you need to have something stationary to compare it to. You can then define the velocity of a particle as the rate of change of the displacement of the particle from the reference point.

Answer: An object is in motion if its distance relative to another object is changing. To tell if an object is moving, you use a reference point. If an object’s distance from another object [reference point] is changing.

An object is travelling at a steady or constant speed when its instantaneous speed has the same value throughout its journey. For example, if a car is travelling at a constant speed the reading on the car’s speedometer does not change.

The diagram at the right shows the direction of the velocity vector at four different points for an object moving in a clockwise direction around a circle. While the speed of the object is constant, its velocity is changing. Velocity, being a vector, has a constant magnitude but a changing direction.

Formula for constant-speed = Total distance / Total time taken. Therefore, the constant speed for the whole journey is 62 miles per hour.

For centuries, physicists thought there was no limit to how fast an object could travel. But Einstein showed that the universe does, in fact, have a speed limit: the speed of light in a vacuum (that is, empty space). Nothing can travel faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).

Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity famously dictates that no known object can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum, which is 299,792 km/s. This speed limit makes it unlikely that humans will ever be able to send spacecraft to explore beyond our local area of the Milky Way.

The half-life of xenon-124, one isotope of xenon, was recently measured to be a trillion times longer than the age of the universe! This is the slowest process ever measured by direct observation.

The Sun

Laser beams

Dwarf seahorses