How to Calculate Displacement in a

Physics Problem
Displacement is the distance between an object’s initial position and its nal position and is usually
measured or de ned along a straight line. Since this is a calculation that measures distance, the
standard unit is the meter (m).

How to nd displacement
In physics, you nd displacement by calculating the distance between an object’s initial position and
its nal position.

The o cial displacement formula is as follows:

In physics terms, you often see displacement referred to as the variable s.
s = sf – si

s = displacement

si = initial position

sf = nal position

Calculating displacement example

Say, for example, that you have a ne new golf ball that’s prone to rolling around. This particular
golf ball likes to roll around on top of a large measuring stick and you want to know how to
calculate displacement when the ball moves. You place the golf ball at the 0 position on the
measuring stick, as shown in the below gure, diagram A.

Examining displacement with a golf ball.

The golf ball rolls over to a new point, 3 meters to the right, as you see in the gure, diagram B. The

golf ball has moved, so displacement has taken place. In this case, the displacement is just 3 meters

to the right. Its initial position was 0 meters, and its nal position is at +3 meters. The displacement
is 3 meters.

Scientists, being who they are, like to go into even more detail. You often see the term si, which
describes initial position, (the i stands for initial). And you may see the term sf used to describe nal
position.

In these terms, moving from diagram A to diagram B in the gure, si is at the 0-meter mark and sf is
at +3 meters. The displacement, s, equals the nal position minus the initial position:

Displacements don’t have to be positive; they can be zero or negative as well. If the positive
direction is to the right, then a negative displacement means that the object has moved to the left.

In diagram C, the restless golf ball has moved to a new location, which is measured as –4 meters on
the measuring stick. The displacement is given by the di erence between the initial and nal
position. If you want to know the displacement of the ball from its position in diagram B, take the
initial position of the ball to be si = 3 meters; then the displacement is given by

When working on physics problems, you can choose to place the origin of your position-measuring
system wherever is convenient. The measurement of the position of an object depends on where
you choose to place your origin; however, displacement from an initial position si to a nal position
sf does not depend on the position of the origin because the displacement depends only on the
di erence between the positions, not the positions themselves.