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Course: High school physics > Unit 1

Lesson 2: Distance, displacement, and coordinate systems
Science
High school physics
One-dimensional motion
Distance, displacement, and coordinate systems
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Finding distance and displacement from graphs

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Problem

A baby elephant trots in a straight line along a river. The horizontal position of the elephant in meters over time is shown below.
Graph of horizontal position (in meters) on the y-axis and time (in seconds) on the x-axis. The graph shows that the elephant travels in three straight-line segments between times t=0 s and t=24 s.
The elephant stays stationary at 6m from t=0s to t=8s. The elephant moves to 15m at t=16s, and then moves to 0m at t=24s.
What is the displacement of the elephant between 0s and 16 s?
  • Your answer should be
  • an integer, like 6
  • a simplified proper fraction, like 3/5
  • a simplified improper fraction, like 7/4
  • a mixed number, like 1 3/4
  • an exact decimal, like 0.75
  • a multiple of pi, like 12 pi or 2/3 pi
m
What is the distance traveled by the elephant between 0s and 16 s?
  • Your answer should be
  • an integer, like 6
  • a simplified proper fraction, like 3/5
  • a simplified improper fraction, like 7/4
  • a mixed number, like 1 3/4
  • an exact decimal, like 0.75
  • a multiple of pi, like 12 pi or 2/3 pi
m