What Is Distance?

Distance measures the space between things

Like lines, segments, and rays, distance is one-dimensional. The distance between two points is the length of the shortest path between them—in other words, the length of the line segment that connects them.

In practice, you can often measure the distance between two points using a ruler, yardstick, measuring tape, or some other device.

Distance is the shortest path between two points. It has a number of formulas, the most famous of which is the formula for the distance between two points on a Cartesian coordinate system:

Given two points $(x_{1},y_{1})$ and $(x_{2}, y_{2})$ the distance between them is equal to the square root of $((x_{2}-x_{1})^2+(y_{2}-y_{1})^2)$. This is called the "distance formula."

Length is the distance between the endpoints of a line segment. For instance: if you have a line segment of length 2, the end points could be any points 2 units apart.