# orthogonal

The word orthogonal comes from the Greek orthe and gonia, or “right angle.” It was originally used as synonym of perpendicular. This is where the use of “orthogonal” in orthogonal lines, orthogonal circles, and other geometric terms come from.

In the realm of linear algebra, two vectors are orthogonal when their dot product is zero, which gave rise a generalization of two vectors on some inner product space (not necessarily dot product) being orthogonal when their inner product is zero.

There are also particular definitions on the following entries:

• orthogonal polynomials

In a more broad sense, it can be said that two objects are orthogonal if they do not “coincide” in some way.

 Title orthogonal Canonical name Orthogonal Date of creation 2013-03-22 12:07:30 Last modified on 2013-03-22 12:07:30 Owner akrowne (2) Last modified by akrowne (2) Numerical id 13 Author akrowne (2) Entry type Definition Classification msc 51F20 Classification msc 65F25 Classification msc 15A63 Classification msc 05E35 Classification msc 42C05 Classification msc 33C45 Classification msc 15A57