How to find the distance between two points

Author: Louise Ward
Date Of Creation: 3 February 2021
Update Date: 1 July 2024
Anonim
Applying the distance formula to find the distance between two points
Video: Applying the distance formula to find the distance between two points

Content

You will consider the distance between two points as a straight line. The length of this segment is calculated using the distance formula:.

Steps

  1. Use the coordinates of the two points where you want to find the distance between them. Suppose Point 1 has coordinates (x1, y1) and Point 2 has coordinates (x2, y2). No matter which point is the point, you just need to keep the names (1 and 2) consistent throughout the problem.
    • x1 is the horizontal coordinate (along the x axis) of Point 1, and x2 is the horizontal coordinate of Point 2.y1 is the vertical coordinate (along the y axis) of Point 1, and y2 is the vertical coordinate the vertical of Point 2.
    • For example, we will take 2 points with coordinates (3,2) and (7,8). If (3,2) is (x1, y1) then (7,8) is (x2, y2).

  2. Formula for calculating distance. This formula is used to calculate the length of the line connecting two points: Point 1 and Point 2. The distance between two points is the square root of the sum of the squares of the horizontal distance with the square of the distance in the vertical direction. between two points. Simply put, it is the square root of:

  3. Find the horizontal and vertical distances between two points. First, take y2 - y1 to find the vertical distance. Then, take x2 - x1 to find the horizontal distance. Don't worry if subtraction is negative. The next step is to square these values, and squaring always yields a positive result.
    • Find the distance in the y-axis. Take for example the points (3,2) and (7,8), where (3,2) is Point 1 and (7,8) is Point 2: (y2 - y1) = 8 - 2 = 6. That is, there are six distance units on the y-axis between two points.
    • Find the distance in the x-axis. For 2 points with coordinates (3,2) and (7,8): (x2 - x1) = 7 - 3 = 4. That is, there are four distance units on the x-axis between the two points.

  4. Square both values. This means that you square the distance on the x axis (x2 - x1) and square the distance on the y axis (y2 - y1).
  5. Add together the squared values. As a result, you will have the square of the linear diagonal line between the two points. For points (3,2) and (7,8), the square of (7 - 3) is 36, and the square of (8 - 2) is 16. 36 + 16 = 52.
  6. Calculate the square root of this equation. This is the last step in the equation. The line connecting the two points is the square root of the sum of the squared values.
    • Continuing with the above example: the distance between (3,2) and (7,8) is the square root of (52), approximately 7.21 units.
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Advice

  • Don't worry if you get negative numbers after subtracting y2 - y1 or x2 - x1. Since this result will be squared later, you always get a positive value for the distance.