Two-dimensional space

In physics and mathematics, two-dimensional space or bi-dimensional space is a geometric model of the planar projection of the physical universe. The two dimensions are commonly called length and width. Both directions lie in the same plane.

A sequence of n real numbers can be understood as a location in n-dimensional space. When n = 2, the set of all such locations is called two-dimensional space or bi-dimensional space, and usually is thought of as a Euclidean space.

History

Books I through IV and VI of Euclid's Elements dealt with two-dimensional geometry, developing such notions as similarity of shapes, the Pythagorean theorem (Proposition 47), equality of angles and areas, parallelism, the sum of the angles in a triangle, and the three cases in which triangles are "equal" (have the same area), among many other topics.

Later, the plane was described in a so-called Cartesian coordinate system, a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely in a plane by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances from the point to two fixed perpendicular directed lines, measured in the same unit of length. Each reference line is called a coordinate axis or just axis of the system, and the point where they meet is its origin, usually at ordered pair (0, 0). The coordinates can also be defined as the positions of the perpendicular projections of the point onto the two axes, expressed as signed distances from the origin.