A boy starts from the north-east corner of a rectangular playground
PHYSICS · Multi-part · A Level · Physics · Mechanics and materials · Mechanics and materials
Problem
A boy starts from the north-east corner of a rectangular playground, walks straight to the south-east corner, then to the south-west corner, and finally stops at the north-west corner.
(i) Describe, without doing any numerical calculation, how the distance covered in the entire walk compares with the magnitude of the displacement from the starting point to the final point.
(ii) Explain whether the magnitude of the boy’s average speed is greater than, equal to, or less than the magnitude of his average velocity for this complete walk. State the reason clearly.
(iii) If the whole walk took 6min, justify why the numerical value of the average speed cannot be the same as that of the average velocity, even though both have the same units.