Question

What is the distance between the origin and (-3, -4)?

Answer 1

First of all, recall that distance is defined as a positive quantity.
Have you tried graphing the given point (-3,-4)? Connect -3 and 0 with a horizontal line and -4 and 0 with a vertical line. Draw in the hypotenuse. Remember how to find the length of a hypotenuse?

Alternatively, use the distance formula: D = Sqrt( (x-[-3])^2 + (y-[-4])^2 ). Simply set x=0 and y=0 and calculate D, the length of the hypotenuse. That's also the distance between (-3,-4) and the origin (0,0).