Coordinate system

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In geometry, a coordinate system is a system which uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of a point or other geometric element on a manifold such as Euclidean space.

Description

The order of the coordinates is significant and they are sometimes identified by their position in an ordered tuple and sometimes by a letter, as in "the x-coordinate".

The coordinates are taken to be real numbers in elementary mathematics, but may be complex numbers or elements of a more abstract system such as a commutative ring.

The use of a coordinate system allows problems in geometry to be translated into problems about numbers and vice versa; this is the basis of analytic geometry.

See also

External links