Question

Why do you disregard the negative square root in the pythagorean theorem?

25 POINTS!!!!   PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

The pythagorean theorem is

`r^2 = a^2 + b^2 \implies r = \pm √(a^2+b^2)`

However, r is defined to be a distance, which has no meaning when it is negative.

[edit] Since negative distance has no meaning, the negative square root in above equation is never used.