displacement

Also known as displacement vector

vector that is the shortest distance from the initial to the final position of a point P

AI overview

Displacement is the straight-line distance and direction from where something starts to where it ends up, representing the shortest path between those two points. It matters because it's different from the total distance traveled—for example, if you walk in a circle and return to your starting point, your displacement is zero even though you covered significant distance.

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Commons category: Displacement vector

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Article

In geometry and mechanics, a displacement is a vector whose length is the shortest distance from the initial to the final position of a point P undergoing motion. It quantifies both the distance and direction of the net or total motion along a straight line from the initial position to the final position of the point trajectory. A displacement may be identified with the translation that maps the initial position to the final position. Displacement is the shift in location when an object in motion changes from one position to another. For motion over a given interval of time, the displacement divided by the length of the time interval defines the average velocity (a vector), whose magnitude is the average speed (a scalar quantity), over the motion on this time interval.

Formulation