An ant is moving on a plane horizontal surface. The number of degrees of freedom of the ant will be

Options

A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 6

Answer

To determine the number of degrees of freedom of an ant moving on a horizontal plane, we can follow these steps:

### Step 1: Understand the Concept of Degrees of Freedom
Degrees of freedom refer to the number of independent ways in which a system can move. For a particle in space, this is typically related to the number of dimensions in which it can move.

### Step 2: Identify the Movement of the Ant
The ant is moving on a horizontal plane. This means that its movement is restricted to two dimensions: the x-axis and the y-axis.

### Step 3: Analyze the Dimensions
- In the x-direction, the ant can move left or right.
- In the y-direction, the ant can move up or down.

Since the ant is constrained to a plane, it does not have any movement in the vertical direction (z-axis).

### Step 4: Count the Degrees of Freedom
Given that the ant can move freely in two dimensions (x and y), we can conclude that it has:
- 1 degree of freedom for movement along the x-axis.
- 1 degree of freedom for movement along the y-axis.

### Conclusion
Thus, the total number of degrees of freedom for the ant is:
\[ \text{Total Degrees of Freedom} = 1 (\text{x-axis}) + 1 (\text{y-axis}) = 2 \]

### Final Answer
The number of degrees of freedom of the ant is **2**.

---