All stationary objects which remain fixed at a place.

Non- Stationary Objects

changes their Position.

A common characteristic of all the moving bodies is that they change their
position with time or with respect to other Objects.

A body is said to be in motion (or moving) when its position changes

continuously with respect to a stationary object taken as reference point.

For example, when the position of a car changes continuously with respect
to stationary objects like houses and trees, etc.,

If a body moves fairly fast, then its movement (or motion) can be observed
easily. But if a body moves very slowly, then it becomes difficult to observe
its movement immediately.

For example, a wrist watch has three hands : a seconds’ hand, a minutes’
hand and an hours’ hand, which move round and round on the dial of the
watch.

In order to study the motion of bodies (or objects), we should first know
the meanings of two terms : distance and displacement

DISTANCE TRAVELLED AND DISPLACEMENT

In everyday language, the words distance and displacement are used in the
same sense but in physics these two words have different meanings

The distance travelled by a body is the actual length of the path covered by
a moving body irrespective of the direction in which the body travels.

When a body moves from one point to another, the distance travelled
refers to the actual length of the indirect path whereas displacement refers
to the straight line path between the initial and the final positions.

When a body moves from one position to another, the shortest (straight
line) distance between the initial position and final position of the body,
along with direction, is known as its displacement.

The distance travelled has only magnitude whereas displacement has

magnitude as well as direction.
The quantities like distance, displacement, etc., are known as physical
quantities (or quantities of physics). The magnitude of a physical quantity
means size of the physical quantity. A physical quantity having only
magnitude (or size) is known as a scalar quantity. A scalar quantity has no
direction,

A physical quantity having magnitude as well as direction is known as a

vector quantity.

(i) Distance is a scalar quantity (because it has magnitude only, it has no

specified direction).

(ii) Displacement is a vector quantity (because it has magnitude as well as a

direction).

For example, if a car travels a distance of 50 km, then the expression “50
km” is the distance travelled, and if the car is travelling in a straight line in
the East direction (or any other direction), then the expression “50 km
towards East” is the displacement of the car.

The distance travelled by a moving body cannot be zero but the final
displacement of a moving body can be zero.

This is because the man has reached back at the starting point A and the
straight line distance between the initial position A and final position A is
zero. Thus, if we take a round trip and reach back at the starting point then,
though we have travelled some distance, our final displacement will be
zero. This is because the straight line distance between the initial and final
positions will be zero.
Sample Problem. A man travels a distance of 1.5 m towards East, then 2.0
m towards South and finally 4.5 m towards East.

(i) What is the total distance travelled ?

(ii) What is his resultant displacement ?