Distance is the total path length you travel; displacement is the straight line from start to finish, with a direction. Drag the sliders below to build a journey of up to three legs and watch the two readouts diverge in real time.
A hike that loops back to your front door can cover real ground and still leave you exactly where you began. That gap is what this simulator makes visible. You build a journey from up to three legs, setting each one with a Leg length slider (in metres) and a Leg direction slider (degrees measured from east), and two readouts respond in real time. The total distance counts the full path length you walked; the net displacement reports the straight line from start to finish, complete with a direction.
The two answers describe the same walk in very different terms. Distance is a scalar: add the leg lengths and you get a number that never drops below zero. Displacement is a vector, the tip-to-tail sum of your legs, so it carries both a magnitude and a heading like “12 m northeast.” Stretch a single leg straight out and the two match exactly, since distance = |displacement|. Bend the path with a turn and the distance pulls ahead, because distance >= |displacement| holds for every route.
Send the last leg back toward the origin and watch the displacement shrink; close the loop and it reaches zero while the distance stays large. Direction is the deciding factor, and it belongs to displacement alone. To keep adding vectors tip to tail on your own, open the vector addition calculator, or browse more motion sandboxes over at the simulation collection.
Distance is the total path length travelled (a scalar); displacement is the straight-line change in position from start to finish (a vector, with direction). Distance is never less than the magnitude of the displacement.
Yes. On a round trip that returns to the start, the displacement is zero — you end where you began — even though the distance travelled can be large.
Distance is always greater than or equal to the magnitude of the displacement. They are equal only for motion in a single straight line; any turn makes the distance larger.
Yes — displacement has both a magnitude and a direction, such as "5 m east". Distance is a scalar, with magnitude only and no direction.