What is the Cartesian coordinate system?

Answer 1

:plane

What it looks like: The Cartesian coordinate plane is a vertical line (the y axis) running through a horizontal line (the x axis). It forms a cross which divides the grid that it's placed on into four quadrants. The quadrants are labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4, in counterclockwise direction, starting in the upper right corner. The point where the x and y axis meet, (0,0) is called the origin. You can graph points on the line by counting the amount of points in the first number of the coordinate (x) on the x axis, and then the second on the y. For example, the coordinate (1,2) would be one space to the right and two up.

What it's used for: You use the coordinate plane to graph points, lines (a collection of consecutive points), or functions (an equation leading to a set of points or a set of points both of which don't have the same x coordinate [basically, if you run a vertical line through whatever shape or collection of points you have, and it doesn't touch any two points at the same time, it's a function.])

Answer 2

For Cartesian coordinates in n-dimensional space there are n axes which are [usually] orthogonal and which meet at a single point called the origin. The coordinates of any point in the n-space are defined by ordered n-tuples whose terms refer to the distances of the point, from the origin, along each of the axes.