It's easier to find the lengths of horizontal and vertical segments.
It's easier to find the distance of a segment if one of the segments endpoints is at the origin.
Example Solution:
Coordinates: (0,0), (2m,0) and (a,b) Explanation: See solution.
Practice makes perfect
When we calculate the lengths of segments in a coordinate plane we should consider the following:
It's easier to find the lengths of horizontal and vertical segments.
It's easier to find the distance of a segment if one endpoint is at the origin.
Since this is a scalene triangle, all angles could be less than 90^(∘) where we will not be able to have one side that runs along the x-axis and another along the y-axis. However, we can still simplify things by placing a vertex at the origin and another either on the x- or y-axis.
