The Distance Formula itself is actually derived from the Pythagorean Theorem which is. The distance formula is. We can either convert the polar points to rectangular points then use a simpler distance formula or we can skip the conversion to rectangular coordinates but use a more complicated distance formula.
The Pythagorean Theorem a2 b2 c2 a 2 b 2 c 2 is based on a right triangle where a and b are the lengths of the legs adjacent to the right angle and c is the length of the hypotenuse.
Distance x 2 x 1 2 y 2 y 1 2. The distance between two points of the xy-plane can be found using the distance formula. The distance formula gives us a simple way of finding the distance between two points. Derived from the Pythagorean Theorem the distance formula is used to find the distance between two points in the plane.