Today we are going on a trip to Italy. With a little imagination, we can board one of the Italian airlines Alitalia's 767 jet and escape to an unforgettable Mediterranean vacation. Fasten your seat belts as we are about to take off from Boston to Milan.
Suppose we start our itinerary in Milan. In our tour, in addition to sightseeing, enjoying gourmet meals from different regions, swimming and relaxation, we are going to travel to eight cities and towns in the order given below.
We are going to travel from Milan (Milano) to Venice (Venezia), from Venice to Florence (Firenze), and then from Florence to the eternal city of Rome (Roma) by train. Then, we will proceed to Naples (Napoli), Bari, Messina and Palermo by tour bus. Finally, we take a Mediterranean cruise from Palermo to Gaeta where we spend the rest of the trip visiting friends and relatives and enjoying one of the nicest beach on the Tyrrhenian sea.
Procedure: Using the metric scale given on the map,
(a) Measure the displacement vector ( via the magnitude and direction using a ruler and protractor ) from each city or town to the next city or town for a total of 8 displacement vectors.
(b) Resolve each of the above vectors into their component forms.
(c) Add these displacement vectors by the component method to find the resultant displacement vector. (this is your theoretical value)
(d) Measure the resultant displacement vector on the map. (mag. and direction)
How does the calculated displacement vector compare to the measured displacement vector (magnitude and direction) ?
Compute the Percent Errors between the Mag. and Direction of the measured and the resultant component versions. Then, Compare your answers to Google Maps estimated distance between the first and last city, and get a percent error between the REAL (google) and the average of your two methods for magnitude and direction.