What does z represent in a math problem?

Answer 1

The answer depends on the context. Some examples:

• z can represent the length of a side of a polygon, for example, a triangle with sides of lengths x, y and z;
  
• z can represent the vertical axis in 3-dimensional coordinate geometry (where x and y are used for the base plane);
• z can represent a variable in the complex plane (z = x + yi);
• z can represent the probability that a random observation from a Normal distribution is at least as extreme as the one seen.