The distance between two points AxA yA A x A y A and BxB yB B x B y B in two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate plane is the length of the segment connecting them AB dA B xB xA2 yB yA2 A B d A B x B - x A 2 y B - y A 2. Thus we need to find PQ. The next figure shows how the plane intersecting the double cone results in each curve.
Derived from the Pythagorean Theorem the distance formula is used to find the distance between two points in the plane.
It does not terribly matter which point is which as long as you keep the labels 1 and 2 consistent throughout the problem. Using Pythagorean theorem and the TI Nspire this is an example of how to find the distance between two points. If two points have the same y -coordinate then the segment connected them is horizontal. To calculate the distance between two points in a plane we have to use the distance formula derived in coordinate geometry.