1. intersecting or lying at right angles
2. having perpendicular slopes or tangents at the point of intersection
From Vocabulary.com:
1. having a set of mutually perpendicular axes; meeting at right angles
2. not pertinent to the matter under consideration
Two lines that are orthogonal are perpendicular or intersecting at a right angle, like a t-square used by draftsmen.
The word orthogonal comes from the Greek orthogōnios meaning "right-angled." While this word is used to describe lines that meet at a right angle, it also describes events that are statistically independent, or do not affect one another in terms of outcome.
From Wikipedia:
In board games such as chess which feature a grid of squares, 'orthogonal' is used to mean "in the same row/'rank' or column/'file'". This is the counterpart to squares which are "diagonally adjacent".
ed. note: there are also math-related definitions of this word that, no matter how many explanations I read, I don't understand, so I omitted them - JD
No comments:
Post a Comment