We will see that the ant's displacement is 8.33 cm
What is displacement?
We define displacement as the magnitude of the difference between the final position and the initial position.
Here we can assume that the initial position of the ant is the point (0 cm, 0cm), where east is the positive x-axis and north is the positive y-axis.
Then, the ant moves south a distance of 5.0 cm, then the new position is:
p = (0cm, -5cm)
Finally, the ant moves southwest for 4cm, the components of this motion are:
- West = 4cm*cos(45°) = 2.83 cm
- South = 4cm*sin(45°) = 2.83cm.
Then the final position of the ant is:
(0cm - 2.83cm, -5cm - 2.83cm) = (-2.83cm, -7.83 cm)
The displacement is then:
[tex]D = \sqrt{(-2.83cm - 0cm)^2 + (-7.83cm - 0cm)^2} = 8.33 cm[/tex]
So the displacement is 8.33 cm
If you want to learn more about displacements, you can read:
https://brainly.com/question/11934397
