hey boops,

i appreciate your explaination. i didnt really grasp most of what you were saying, and i totally lost you once you started talking about cin,cos and matrix''s.... but i appreciate you help.. i think i understand the distance forumla ( alittle).. what i dont understand is, isnt a^2 = b^2 + c^2 the same as saying a = b+c, or no? sorry if its a stupid question .. and if the answer is yes, why even bother throwing in the ^2''s? thanks again

No it''s not the same. sqrt(a^2 + b^2) = c, in other words:
something to the .5 power is the same as saying ''the square root power'', and it doesn''t distribute like multiplication does. So when you found c above, you took the square root of both sides and you couldn''t break up a^2 and b^2, the addition had to be first. So,
(a + b)^2 does not equal (a^2 + b^2), but (ab)^2 = (a^2b^2), so it doesn''t have the distributive property with addition.

-_- Stop giving TMI the man asked a simple question and has already received a simple answer.