Question

The points (-1,4) and (2,-3) are adjacent vertices of a square. What is the area of the square?

Answer 1

How long is each side?

Answer 2

is the answer 21units squared?

Answer 3

21*21=441

Answer 4

Oh wait... haha, I did this wrong

Answer 5

what happen?

Answer 6

So use the distance formula on those two points to get the length of one side

Answer 7

it's not 21

Answer 8

Adjacent means that they are next to each other, not diagonal from each other. So basically they are along the same side of the square, so just find the magnitude of the distance between them and that will be the length of one side. To find the area of a square, you have to do side*side, so once you get the magnitude of the length between the points, just square it!

Answer 9

Conveniently, the distance formula has a square root as its last step, so area is just (x1-x2)^2 + (y1-y2)^2