so the idea is: if you have some set $X$, then what should an abstract notion of "distance" on $X$ satisfy?
The conditions we put on a function $d:X \times X \to \Bbb R$ (this means that we take two inputs from $X$ and get a real number) are really intuitive:
- for all $x,y \in X$, $d(x,y) \geq 0$, because distance is always positive
- for all $x,y \in X$, $d(x,y)=0$, because the only point having distance zero from $x$ should be $x$ itself
- for all $x,y \in X$, $d(x,y)=d(y,x)$, because distance from $x$ to $y$ should be the same as the distance from $y$ to $x$