Explore: Perpendicular

In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the perpendicular symbol, ⟂. Perpendicular intersections can happen between two lines (or two line segments), between a line and a plane, and between two planes. Perpendicular is also used as a noun: a perpendicular is a line which is perpendicular to a given line or plane. Perpendicularity is one particular instance of the more general mathematical concept of orthogonality; perpendicularity is the orthogonality of classical geometric objects. Thus, in advanced mathematics, the word "perpendicular" is sometimes used to describe much more complicated geometric orthogonality conditions, such as that between a surface and its normal vector. A line is said to be perpendicular to another line if the two lines intersect at a right angle. Explicitly, a first line is perpendicular to a second line if (1) the two lines meet; and (2) at the point of intersection the straight angle on one side of the first line is cut by the second line into two congruent angles. Perpendicularity can be shown to be symmetric, meaning if a first line is perpendicular to a second line, then the second line is also perpendicular to the first. For this reason, we may speak of two lines as being perpendicular (to each other) without specifying an order. A great example of perpendicularity can be seen in any compass, note the cardinal points; North, East, South, West (NESW) The line N-S is perpendicular to the line W-E and the angles N-E, E-S, S-W and W-N are all 90° to one another. Perpendicularity easily extends to segments and rays. For example, a line segment A B ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {AB}}} is perpendicular to a line segment C D ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {CD}}} if, when each is extended in both directions to form an infinite line, these two resulting lines are perpendicular in the sense above. In symbols, A B ¯ ⊥ C D ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {AB}}\perp {\overline {CD}}} means line segment AB is perpendicular to line segment CD. A line is said to be perpendicular to a plane if it is perpendicular to every line in the plane that it intersects. This definition depends on the definition of perpendicularity between lines. Two planes in space are said to be perpendicular if the dihedral angle at which they meet is a right angle.

In geometry, a normal is an object (e.g. a line, ray, or vector) that is perpendicular to a given object. For example, the normal line to a plane curve at a given point is the infinite straight line perpendicular to the tangent line to the curve at the point. A normal vector is a vector perpendicular to a given object at a particular point. A normal vector of length one is called a unit normal vector or normal direction. A curvature vector is a normal vector whose length is the curvature of the object. Multiplying a normal vector by −1 results in the opposite vector, which may be used for indicating sides (e.g., interior or exterior) or orientation (e.g., clockwise vs. counterclockwise, right handed vs. left handed). In three-dimensional space, a surface normal, or simply normal, to a surface at point P is a vector perpendicular to the tangent plane of the surface at P. The vector field of normal directions to a surface is known as Gauss map. The word "normal" is also used as an adjective: a line normal to a plane, the normal component of a force, etc. The concept of normality generalizes to orthogonality (right angles). The concept has been generalized to differentiable manifolds of arbitrary dimension embedded in a Euclidean space. The normal vector space or normal space of a manifold at point P {\displaystyle P} is the set of vectors which are orthogonal to the tangent space at P . {\displaystyle P.} Normal vectors are of special interest in the case of smooth curves and smooth surfaces. The normal is often used in 3D computer graphics (notice the singular, as only one normal will be defined) to determine a surface's orientation toward a light source for flat shading, or the orientation of each of the surface's corners (vertices) to mimic a curved surface with Phong shading. The foot of a normal at a point of interest Q (analogous to the foot of a perpendicular) can be defined at the point P on the surface where the normal vector contains Q. The normal distance of a point Q to a curve or to a surface is the Euclidean distance between Q and its foot P.