If it is 0.5 miles from the white house to the washington monument and 1.2 miles from the washington monument to the capitol, how far is it from the white house to the capitol?

check the picture below.

well, the angle at the vertex d is clearly not a right-angle, let's check for the one at the vertex f which does look like,   however if it's indeed, that means ef is perpendicular to df, in which case their slopes will be negative reciprocal of each other.

so the negative reciprocal of the slope of ef is 1, however the slope of df is not 1, is 1/2, so nope, they're not perpendicular lines.

set each factor equal to 0

4x-3 = 0

2x-1 = 0

solve for x.

4x-3=0

4x=3

x= 3/4

solve for x. 

2x-1= 0

2x= 1

x= 1/2

eventually after a few more steps, your answer should be 1/2 is less than or equal to x and 3/4 is greater than or equal to x