Secant line Secant line In geometry, a secant of a curve is a line that intersects the curve in at least two (distinct) points. The word "secant" comes from the Latin word "secare", meaning "to cut". In the case of a circle, a secant will intersect the circle in exactly two points and a chord is the line segment determined by these two points, that is the interval on a secant whose endpoints are these points. A straight line can intersect a circle in two, one or zero points. A line intersecting in two points is called a "secant line", in one
Distance from a point to a line the same point and the line is |"ax" + "c"| / |"a"|, as measured along a horizontal line segment. If the line passes through two points "P"=("x","y") and "P"=("x","y") then the distance of (x,y) from the line is: The denominator of this expression is the distance between "P" and "P". The numerator is twice the area of the triangle with its vertices at the three points, (x,y), "P" and "P". See: . The expression is equivalent to formula_4, which can be obtained by rearranging the standard formula for the area of a triangle: formula_5, where "b" is the length of