How do you use a coordinate plane?

Answer 1

We assign coordinates to point on the plane and use those coordinates to tell us about the points. For example, the distance formula tells us how far apart they are, the midpoint formula tells us where there midpoint is. All of these and much more depend looking at a point as an ordered pair, (x,y) in the coordinate plane.The coordinate system is determined by the two directed lines and the given unit length. When the directed lines intersect at a right angle, the system is Cartesian, and (x,y) are Cartesian coordinates of the point. Normally, x-axis and y-axis are chosen so that an anticlockwise rotation of one right angle takes the positive x-direction to the positive y-direction.

There are other methods of assigning coordinates to points in the plane. one such is the method of polar coordinates.

The coordinate plane is the main idea in analytic geometry.