The main goal of this paper is to reach an explicit formulation and possible interpretation of thermodynamic length in a thermodynamic state space with two degrees of freedom. Using the energy and entropy metric in a general form, we get explicit results about thermodynamic length along isotherms, its relation with work and with speed of sound. We also look at the relation between the determinants of the energy and entropy metrics and find that they differ by a factor of T-4. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.