Question

Which of the following sums would be under the radical symbol to find the distance between the points (7, -1) and (-8, -9)?

Answer 1

So the distance formula is $\sqrt{(x_2-x_1)^2+(y_2-y_1)^2}$ . Using this, our equation is $\sqrt{(7-(-8))^2+(-1-(-9))^2}$ and we can solve for it as such:

$\sqrt{(7-(-8))^2+(-1-(-9))^2}\\ \sqrt{15^2+8^2}$

As we see with this radical, the sum that's under it is 15^2 + 8^2, or the third option.