QUESTION IMAGE
Question
but what if the car’s position is changing over time, like the car in the image below? to describe a car’s motion, we need additional terms.
what’s the difference between position and distance?
speed and velocity
image of a car on a highway with a speed limit 75 sign
an object’s speed is a measure of how fast it’s moving. its calculated by measuring the distance the object travels and dividing by the amount of time it takes to travel that distance:
The problem here is to explain the difference between position and distance (and also related to speed/velocity in the context of motion, which is a Physics topic). But since the specific question asked is "What's the difference between position and distance?", here's the explanation:
Position refers to the location of an object relative to a reference point (e.g., a coordinate system or a fixed place like a road marker), having both magnitude and direction (in vector terms) or a specific point in space. Distance is the total length of the path traveled by an object, a scalar quantity that only has magnitude (it doesn't consider direction, just how much ground an object has covered). For example, a car's position might be 5 km east of a city center, while the distance it traveled to get there could be 7 km if it took a winding route.
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Position is an object’s location relative to a reference point (can be vector - has direction), distance is the total path length traveled (scalar - no direction).