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In modern mathematics, a point refers usually to an element of some set called a space. More specifically, in Euclidean geometry, a point is a primitive notion upon which the geometry is built. Being a primitive notion means that a point cannot be defined in terms of previously defined objects. That is, a point is defined only by some properties, called axioms, that it must satisfy. In particular, the geometric points do not have any length, area, volume, or any other dimensional attribute. A common interpretation is that the concept of a point is meant to capture the notion of a unique location in Euclidean space. ==Points in Euclidean geometry== Points, considered within the framework of Euclidean geometry, are one of the most fundamental objects. Euclid originally defined the point as "that which has no part". In two-dimensional Euclidean space, a point is represented by an ordered pair (, ) of numbers, where the first number conventionally represents the horizontal and is often denoted by , and the second number conventionally represents the vertical and is often denoted by . This idea is easily generalized to three-dimensional Euclidean space, where a point is represented by an ordered triplet (, , ) with the additional third number representing depth and often denoted by . Further generalizations are represented by an ordered tuplet of terms, where is the dimension of the space in which the point is located. Many constructs within Euclidean geometry consist of an infinite collection of points that conform to certain axioms. This is usually represented by a set of points; As an example, a line is an infinite set of points of the form , where through and are constants and is the dimension of the space. Similar constructions exist that define the plane, line segment and other related concepts. By the way, a degenerate line segment consists of only one point. In addition to defining points and constructs related to points, Euclid also postulated a key idea about points; he claimed that any two points can be connected by a straight line. This is easily confirmed under modern expansions of Euclidean geometry, and had lasting consequences at its introduction, allowing the construction of almost all the geometric concepts of the time. However, Euclid's postulation of points was neither complete nor definitive, as he occasionally assumed facts about points that did not follow directly from his axioms, such as the ordering of points on the line or the existence of specific points. In spite of this, modern expansions of the system serve to remove these assumptions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Point (geometry)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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