Perpendicular Definition

adjective
  • geometry
    at a right angle to the line, surface, or plane.
    "The axes of a coordinate system are perpendicular to each other."
    Similar:
    orthogonal

Explanation

In geometry, two lines or planes are said to be perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle, which is an angle of degrees.

For example, in the Cartesian coordinate system, the -axis and -axis are perpendicular to each other.

Similarly, the edges of a square or rectangle are perpendicular to each other, as are the faces of a cube or rectangular prism.

The symbol for perpendicularity is ⊥. For example, if you have two lines, and , you can write to mean “line is perpendicular to line ”.

Related Terms

An angle is a measure of rotation or turning and is usually measured in degrees or radians. In geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, sharing a common endpoint called the vertex.

In mathematics, orthogonal refers to a concept involving right angles. In Euclidean space, two vectors are orthogonal if they are at right angles to each other. In linear algebra, two vectors are orthogonal if their dot product is zero.

A perpendicular angle is equal to a quarter of a full rotation. A perpendicular angle is measured as 90 degrees or π/2 radians.

Links

In geometry, the perpendicular symbol is used to show that two lines are perpendicular to each other. Visually, the symbol is made up of two lines that form a perpendicular angle.