Prove that a perpendicular drawn from a point to a line is less than any inclined line drawn from this point to a line.

Let us draw two other straight lines from this point to the straight line – a perpendicular and an inclined one. We will get a right-angled triangle. In it, the perpendicular is the leg, since it makes a right angle, and the oblique is the hypotenuse. We know that the legs cannot be larger than the hypotenuse. From this it follows that the perpendicular will be less than any oblique.