Conceptual
Login

Locating Points by Signed Coordinates in the Cartesian Plane

A point in the plane is named by an ordered pair whose first entry is its signed horizontal displacement from the origin and whose second entry is its signed vertical displacement, measured against two perpendicular axes. The two signs partition the plane into four quadrants, so the quadrant a point lies in is read directly off the pair of signs, and the origin is the unique point with both displacements zero. This is the analytic-geometry convention that lets a geometric position be recorded as, and recovered from, a pair of numbers.