How To Calculate Distance 8 Steps With Pictures

To better understand the process of using the distance formula, let’s solve an example problem in this section. Let’s say that we’re barreling down the road at 120 miles per hour (about 193 km per hour) and we want to know how far we will travel in half an hour. Using 120 mph as our value for average speed and 0. 5 hours as our value for time, we’ll solve this problem in the next step.

Note, however, that if the units of time used in your average speed value are different than those used in your time value, you’ll need to convert one or the other so that they are compatible. For instance, if we have an average speed value that’s measured in km per hour and a time value that’s measured in minutes, you would need to divide the time value by 60 to convert it to hours. Let’s solve our example problem. 120 miles/hour × 0. 5 hours = 60 miles. Note that the units in the time value (hours) cancel with the units in the denominator of the average speed (hours) to leave only distance units (miles).

For instance, let’s say that we know that a car has driven 60 miles in 50 minutes, but we don’t have a value for the average speed while traveling. In this case, we might isolate the savg variable in the basic distance equation to get savg = d/t, then simply divide 60 miles / 50 minutes to get an answer of 1. 2 miles/minute. Note that in our example, our answer for speed has an uncommon units (miles/minute). To get your answer in the more common form of miles/hour, multiply it by 60 minutes/hour to get 72 miles/hour.

For instance, in the example problem above, we concluded that to travel 60 miles in 50 minutes, we’d need to travel at 72 miles/hour. However, this is only true if travel at one speed for the entire trip. For instance, by traveling at 80 miles/hr for half of the trip and 64 miles/hour for the other half, we will still travel 60 miles in 50 minutes — 72 miles/hour = 60 miles/50 min = ????? Calculus-based solutions using derivatives are often a better choice than the distance formula for defining an object’s speed in real-world situations because changes in speed are likely.

Note that this formula uses absolute values (the “| |” symbols). Absolute values simply mean that the terms contained within the symbols become positive if they are negative. For example, let’s say that we’re stopped by the side of the road on a perfectly straight stretch of highway. If there is a small town 5 miles ahead of us and a town 1 mile behind us, how far apart are the two towns? If we set town 1 as x1 = 5 and town 2 as x1 = -1, we can find d, the distance between the two towns, as follows: d = |x2 - x1| = |-1 - 5| = |-6| = 6 miles.

The 2-D distance formula takes advantage of the Pythagorean theorem, which dictates that the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the square root of the squares of the other two sides. For example, let’s say that we have two points in the x-y plane: (3, -10) and (11, 7) that represent the center of a circle and a point on the circle, respectively. To find the straight-line distance between these two points, we can solve as follows: d = √((x2 - x1)2 + (y2 - y1)2) d = √((11 - 3)2 + (7 - -10)2) d = √(64 + 289) d = √(353) = 18. 79

For example, let’s say that we’re an astronaut floating in space near two asteroids. One is about 8 kilometers in front of us, 2 km to the right of us, and 5 miles below us, while the other is 3 km behind us, 3 km to the left of us, and 4 km above us. If we represent the positions of these asteroids with the coordinates (8,2,-5) and (-3,-3,4), we can find the distance between the two as follows: d = √((-3 - 8)2 + (-3 - 2)2 + (4 - -5)2) d = √((-11)2 + (-5)2 + (9)2) d = √(121 + 25 + 81) d = √(227) = 15. 07 km