Summary
We offer an elementary solution to the shortest distance problem. In addition to being accessible to freshman Calculus students, our approach also provides a bit of extra information, namely a way quantify the “length excess” in terms of how much the path deviates from being a straight line.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Note that the online version of this article has color diagrams
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Katiuscia B. Teixeira
KATIUSCIA TEIXEIRA (MR Author ID: 1490277) is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Central Florida. Her research focuses on mathematics education. She is also interested in new insightful proofs of important results from undergraduate and graduate mathematical courses.