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Abscissa


The x- (horizontal) coordinate of a point in a two dimensional coordinate system. Physicists and astronomers sometimes use the term to refer to the axis itself instead of the distance along it.

In older texts, the abscissa is sometimes used in a more general sense as a number determining the position of a point along a line. For instance, a straight line in Euclidean three-space can be parametrized by a+bt, where a,b in R^3 with b!=0. Here, t is the abscissa of the corresponding point a+bt on the line.


See also

Axis, Ordinate, Real Line, x-Axis, y-Axis, z-Axis

Portions of this entry contributed by Rasmus Hedegaard

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Cite this as:

Hedegaard, Rasmus and Weisstein, Eric W. "Abscissa." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Abscissa.html

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