The distance between two parallel lines in the plane is the minimum distance between any two points.

Contents

• Formula and proof
• See also
• References
• External links

Formula and proof

Because the lines are parallel, the perpendicular distance between them is a constant, so it does not matter which point is chosen to measure the distance. Given the equations of two non-vertical parallel lines

${\displaystyle y=mx+b_{1}\,}$

${\displaystyle y=mx+b_{2}\,,}$

the distance between the two lines is the distance between the two intersection points of these lines with the perpendicular line

${\displaystyle y=-x/m\,.}$

This distance can be found by first solving the system of linear equations

${\displaystyle {\begin{cases}y=mx+b_{1}\\y=-x/m\,,\end{cases}}}$

and

${\displaystyle {\begin{cases}y=mx+b_{2}\\y=-x/m\,,\end{cases}}}$

to get the coordinates of the intersection points. The solutions to the linear systems are the points

${\displaystyle \left(x_{1},y_{1}\right)\ =\left({\frac {-b_{1}m}{m^{2}+1}},{\frac {b_{1}}{m^{2}+1}}\right)\,,}$

and

${\displaystyle \left(x_{2},y_{2}\right)\ =\left({\frac {-b_{2}m}{m^{2}+1}},{\frac {b_{2}}{m^{2}+1}}\right)\,.}$

The distance between the points is

${\displaystyle d={\sqrt {\left({\frac {b_{1}m-b_{2}m}{m^{2}+1}}\right)^{2}+\left({\frac {b_{2}-b_{1}}{m^{2}+1}}\right)^{2}}}\,,}$

which reduces to

${\displaystyle d={\frac {|b_{2}-b_{1}|}{\sqrt {m^{2}+1}}}\,.}$

When the lines are given by

${\displaystyle ax+by+c_{1}=0\,}$

${\displaystyle ax+by+c_{2}=0,\,}$

the distance between them can be expressed as

${\displaystyle d={\frac {|c_{2}-c_{1}|}{\sqrt {a^{2}+b^{2}}}}.}$

See also

• Distance from a point to a line

References

• Abstand In: Schülerduden – Mathematik II. Bibliographisches Institut & F. A. Brockhaus, 2004, ISBN   3-411-04275-3, pp. 17-19 (German)
• Hardt Krämer, Rolf Höwelmann, Ingo Klemisch: Analytische Geometrie und Lineare Akgebra. Diesterweg, 1988, ISBN   3-425-05301-9, p. 298 (German)

External links

• Florian Modler: Vektorprodukte, Abstandsaufgaben, Lagebeziehungen, Winkelberechnung – Wann welche Formel?, pp. 44-59 (German)
• A. J. Hobson: “JUST THE MATHS” - UNIT NUMBER 8.5 - VECTORS 5 (Vector equations of straight lines), pp. 8-9