Crossing Streets

In the world of two-dimensional kinematics and vectors, one must always take into count both how far something is traveling as well as how, or what direction, the object is moving. Walking from one place to another is a definite example. Normally, one cannot travel in a continuously straight line in order to go somewhere. Instead, one often has to cross from one street to the next. In this instance, I drew the simplified version of my path to a restaurant. Starting from the "x", I walk north for 0.3 meters, walk 0.07 meters to the west, walk north for 0.06 meters, walk east for 0.07 meters, and then continue north for 0.12 meters in order to reach my destination, which is indicated as a rectangle on this diagram. Based on a two-dimensional coordinate system, I traveled 0.48 meters positively on the y-axis. Since I technically returned to my original distance on the x-axis, my horizontal displacement was 0 meters. However, these calculations do not demonstrate how I actually traveled to the restaurant. I had to change directions because I had to walk across areas where pedestrians could cross.