Plane (geometry)
In mathematics, a plane is a flat, two-dimensional surface. A plane is the two dimensional analogue of a point (zero-dimensions), a line (one-dimension) and a solid (three-dimensions). Planes can arise as subspaces of some higher dimensional space, as with the walls of a room, or they may enjoy an independent existence in their own right, as in the setting of Euclidean geometry.
When working exclusively in two-dimensional Euclidean space, the definite article is used, so, the plane refers to the whole space. Many fundamental tasks in mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, graph theory and graphing are performed in a two-dimensional space, or in other words, in the plane.
Read more about Plane (geometry): Euclidean Geometry, Planes Embedded in 3-dimensional Euclidean Space, Planes in Various Areas of Mathematics, Topological and Differential Geometric Notions
Famous quotes containing the word plane:
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)