Question

Find the perpendicular distance of a point P (5, 7) from the y-axis.

Answer 1

Hint: The perpendicular distance of a point from the x-axis is it’s y-coordinate and the perpendicular distance of a point from the y-axis is the x-coordinate.

Complete step-by-step answer:
A coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, also called the coordinates, to uniquely determine the position in space.
A cartesian coordinate system in a two-dimensional plane is a set of two perpendicular lines and the points are represented by the perpendicular distance from these coordinates. The origin is the intersection of these two perpendicular lines and assigned a value of (0, 0).
In this problem, we are given a point P with coordinates (5, 7). We need to determine the perpendicular distance of this point from the y-axis.
The perpendicular distance of a point from the x-axis is it's y-coordinate and the perpendicular distance of the point from the y-axis is its x-coordinate as per definition.

The x-coordinate of the point P is 5. The y-coordinate of the point P is 7.
Hence, the perpendicular distance of the point P from the y-axis is 5 units.

Note: You need to be careful, you might think the y-coordinate is the perpendicular distance from the y-axis but it is not, the x-coordinate is the perpendicular distance from the y-axis.