Perpendicular

In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the perpendicular symbol, ⟂. It can be defined between two lines (or two line segments), between a line and a plane, and between two planes.

This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (September 2022)

Geometry
Projecting a sphere to a plane
Outline History
Branches Euclidean Non-Euclidean Elliptic Spherical Hyperbolic Non-Archimedean geometry Projective Affine Synthetic Analytic Algebraic Arithmetic Diophantine Differential Riemannian Symplectic Discrete differential Complex Finite Discrete/Combinatorial Digital Convex Computational Fractal Incidence Noncommutative geometry Noncommutative algebraic geometry
Concepts Features Dimension Straightedge and compass constructions Angle Curve Diagonal Orthogonality (Perpendicular) Parallel Vertex Congruence Similarity Symmetry
Zero-dimensional Point
One-dimensional Line segment ray Length
Two-dimensional Plane Area Polygon Triangle Altitude Hypotenuse Pythagorean theorem Parallelogram Square Rectangle Rhombus Rhomboid Quadrilateral Trapezoid Kite Circle Diameter Circumference Area
Three-dimensional Volume Cube cuboid Cylinder Pyramid Sphere
Four- / other-dimensional Tesseract Hypersphere
Geometers
by name Aida Aryabhata Ahmes Alhazen Apollonius Archimedes Atiyah Baudhayana Bolyai Brahmagupta Cartan Coxeter Descartes Euclid Euler Gauss Gromov Hilbert Jyeṣṭhadeva Kātyāyana Khayyám Klein Lobachevsky Manava Minkowski Minggatu Pascal Pythagoras Parameshvara Poincaré Riemann Sakabe Sijzi al-Tusi Veblen Virasena Yang Hui al-Yasamin Zhang List of geometers
by period BCE Ahmes Baudhayana Manava Pythagoras Euclid Archimedes Apollonius 1–1400s Zhang Kātyāyana Aryabhata Brahmagupta Virasena Alhazen Sijzi Khayyám al-Yasamin al-Tusi Yang Hui Parameshvara 1400s–1700s Jyeṣṭhadeva Descartes Pascal Minggatu Euler Sakabe Aida 1700s–1900s Gauss Lobachevsky Bolyai Riemann Klein Poincaré Hilbert Minkowski Cartan Veblen Coxeter Present day Atiyah Gromov
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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.