What is the difference between normal and perpendicular?

Answer 1

in 2 and 3 dimensions they turn out to be pretty much the same, but what would perpendicular mean in 4 or 6 dimensions? For example a line perpendicular to another intersects it and creates a 90 degree angle, it is also normal and a line can be normal to a plane also. Normal is a more general term that can be used in higher dimensions and other setting where perpendicular might make no sense. For example, if you know what a dot product is that two vectors are normal if their dot product is zero, These may be n dimensional vectors and perpendicular would make no sense. In many more abstract settings normal works but perpendicular would have no meaning at all.

There are more technical explanations but I hope to make this answer more intuitive!

There is a very slight difference between NORMAL and PERPENDICULAR. Well NORMAL is that perpendicular which is drawn at the contact point between two meeting lines. Its simple as this. For example in case of tangents (which is drawn to find the direction of a point in a curve) the perpendicular draw at the meeting point of the tangent and the curve is called normal. Its like, every normal is a perpendicular but all perpendiculars are not normal. I hope this clears all your doubt.