PHYSICS · Multi-part · CBSE · Physics · Motion in a Plane · Motion in a Plane
Problem
A straight village road runs exactly east–west. The village school S is chosen as origin (x=0). A student’s house H is situated +120m on the eastern side of the school, while a grocery store R lies −80m to the west of the school on the same road. One evening the student walks from the house to the store, stopping briefly at the school on the way.
(i) Taking east as the positive direction, write the initial position xi and the final position xf of the student.
(ii) Calculate the student’s displacement for the entire walk from house H to store R (give sign and magnitude).
(iii) If the grocery store R is selected as the new origin while the positive direction still points east, determine the positions (with sign and unit) of the school S and the house H relative to this new reference point.
(iv) Find the total distance actually walked by the student from H to S to R.