Does Distance = Hypotenuse?

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1

I’ve read PwnTheSAT’s explanation of a problem, and he stated that one should never use the distance formula but rather right triangles (a bit harder for me to visualize, though). He said, however, that the distance is actually just the hypotenuse. So, since (10,18) and (x,3) are given, and the x is missing, we can safely assume that y is (18-3) or 15 [I honestly don’t know how he got to this, though!].

15^2 + x^2 = 17^2
So, is he right???

2

The distance formula comes from the Pythagorean theorem, so yes, that’s correct.

3

Yes, although strictly speaking, the correct equation would be

15^2 + (10-x)^2 = 17^2

assuming the distance between (10,18) and (x,3) is 17.

4

@MITer94 Wow, that makes much more sense and saves some time, as I don’t have to forget to add to/subtract from whatever I get for x with 10.