Displacement

Definition: Displacement is change in position, $\Delta$$\vec{x}$ = $\vec{x}_{f}^{}$ - $\vec{x}_{i}^{}$ where $\vec{x}_{f}^{}$ is the final position and $\vec{x}_{i}^{}$ is the initial position. The arrow indicates that displacement is a vector quantity: it has direction and magnitude. In 1 dimension, there are only two possible directions which can be specified with either a plus or a minus sign. Other examples of vectors are velocity, acceleration and force. In contrast, scalar quantities have only magnitude. Some examples of scalars are speed, mass, temperature and energy.