In geometry, the perpendicular distance from a point, P, to a line, L, is the distance from P to L, measured along a line which is perpendicular to L and passes through P.
In three dimensions, a perpendicular distance may also be the distance from a point to a plane, measured along the line that passes through the point and is perpendicular to the plane. Also, it can be the distance between two non-coplanar lines, measured along the line that has perpendicular intersections with them both.
Read more about Perpendicular Distance: Formulae (two Dimensions), Proof (Two Dimensions), Proof (Higher Dimensions), See Also
Famous quotes containing the word distance:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)