Line

Revision as of 01:59, 4 August 2006 by MCrawford (talk | contribs) (capitalized "Cartesian")

A line in the euclidean sense is defined as the shortest distance between two points. It is defined to be in 1 direction only, i.e. infinitely thin but also infinitely long. In the Cartesian coordinate system, it is usually described as an equation in x and y of the form $y=mx+b$, where m is the slope of the line and b is the y-intercept. Any two points define a line, and given specific $(x_1,y_1)$ $(x_2,y_2)$ one can solve for the line's equation.


Introductory

Example Problem