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Pedantically, "orthogonal" is an extrapolation of "perpendicular" from two dimensions to an arbitrary number of dimensions.
by bcbrown 14y ago
Pedantically, "orthogonal" is an extrapolation of "perpendicular" from two dimensions to an arbitrary number of dimensions.
- SatvikBeri 14y agoIf we want to be really pedantic, orthogonal is an extrapolation of perpendicular from R^2 to any vector space with a dot product. But those generalizations came about in the 16th century. The original definition was just "perpendicular", coming from the Greek "orthos" and "gonia", meaning "straight" and "angle" respectively. For some fun reading on the etymology of and history of the word/concept orthogonal, see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=orthogonal&allowed_in_frame=0 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=orthogonal&allo... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal