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In mathematics, a plane is a two-dimensional space or flat surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. When working exclusively in two-dimensional Euclidean space, the definite article is used, so the Euclidean plane refers to the ...
A plane serves as a mathematical model for many physical phenomena, such as specular reflection in a plane mirror or wavefronts in a traveling plane wave. The free surface of undisturbed liquids tends to be nearly flat (see flatness). The flattest surface ever manufactured is a quantum-stabilized atom mirror. [11]
The inductive dimension of a topological space may refer to the small inductive dimension or the large inductive dimension, and is based on the analogy that, in the case of metric spaces, (n + 1)-dimensional balls have n-dimensional boundaries, permitting an inductive definition based on the dimension of the boundaries of open sets. Moreover ...
In mathematics, a Euclidean plane is a Euclidean space of dimension two, denoted or . It is a geometric space in which two real numbers are required to determine the position of each point . It is an affine space , which includes in particular the concept of parallel lines .
The most basic example is the flat Euclidean plane, an idealization of a flat surface in physical space such as a sheet of paper or a chalkboard. On the Euclidean plane, any two points can be joined by a unique straight line along which the distance can be measured.
The circle has dimension one, by this definition, because any such cover can be further refined to the stage where a given point x of the circle is contained in at most two open arcs. That is, whatever collection of arcs we begin with, some can be discarded or shrunk, such that the remainder still covers the circle but with simple overlaps.
These postulates are all based on basic geometry that can be confirmed experimentally with a scale and protractor. Since the postulates build upon the real numbers, the approach is similar to a model-based introduction to Euclidean geometry. Birkhoff's axiomatic system was utilized in the secondary-school textbook by Birkhoff and Beatley. [2]
The flats in a plane (two-dimensional space) are points, lines, and the plane itself; the flats in three-dimensional space are points, lines, planes, and the space itself. The definition of flat excludes non-straight curves and non-planar surfaces, which are subspaces having different notions of distance: arc length and geodesic length ...