Important: The student package has been deprecated. Use the superseding command Student[Precalculus][Distance] instead.

The distance function computes the distance between Points in one or higher dimensions. If the Points are of dimension 2 or higher (such as $\left[x\,y\right]$ or $\left[1\,2\,3\right]$) then the standard Euclidean distance is used. If one or both Points are algebraic expressions other than names, then the distance is computed in one dimension. If the Points are both names then distance returns unevaluated.

A Point in two or more dimensions is defined as a list of coordinates (such as $\left[x\,y\right]$, or $\left[x\,y\,z\right]$). {Point}s in one dimension are just algebraic expressions, though names may be treated as either depending on the context.

The command with(student,distance) allows the use of the abbreviated form of this command.

$\mathrm{with}\left(\mathrm{student}\right)\:$

$\mathrm{distance}\left(a\,b\right)$

$\mathrm{distance}\left(a\,b\right)$

$\mathrm{distance}\left(-3\,a+5\right)$

$\left|a+8\right|$

$\mathrm{distance}\left(\left[a\,b\right]\,\left[c\,d\right]\right)$

$\sqrt{{\left(d-b\right)}^2+{\left(c-a\right)}^2}$