In mathematics, a unit square is a square whose sides have length 1. Often, the unit square refers specifically to the square in the Cartesian plane with corners at the four points (0, 0), (1, 0), (0, 1), and (1, 1).
In a Cartesian coordinate system with coordinates (x, y), a unit square is defined as a square consisting of the points where both x and y lie in a closed unit interval from 0 to 1.
That is, a unit square is the Cartesian product I × I, where I denotes the closed unit interval.
The unit square can also be thought of as a subset of the complex plane, the topological space formed by the complex numbers. In this view, the four corners of the unit square are at the four complex numbers 0, 1, i, and 1 + i.
Is there a point in the plane at a rational distance from all four corners of a unit square?
It is not known whether any point in the plane is a rational distance from all four vertices of the unit square. [1]
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is constant. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. Usually, the radius is required to be a positive number. A circle with is a degenerate case. This article is about circles in Euclidean geometry, and, in particular, the Euclidean plane, except where otherwise noted.
In geometry and algebra, a real number is constructible if and only if, given a line segment of unit length, a line segment of length can be constructed with compass and straightedge in a finite number of steps. Equivalently, is constructible if and only if there is a closed-form expression for using only integers and the operations for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square roots.
A Cartesian coordinate system in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in the same unit of length. Each reference coordinate line is called a coordinate axis or just axis of the system, and the point where they meet is its origin, at ordered pair (0, 0). The coordinates can also be defined as the positions of the perpendicular projections of the point onto the two axes, expressed as signed distances from the origin.
In mathematics, an equation is a formula that expresses the equality of two expressions, by connecting them with the equals sign =. The word equation and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for example, in French an équation is defined as containing one or more variables, while in English, any well-formed formula consisting of two expressions related with an equals sign is an equation.
Euclidean space is the fundamental space of classical geometry. Originally, it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are Euclidean spaces of any nonnegative integer dimension, including the three-dimensional space and the Euclidean plane. It was introduced by the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, and the qualifier Euclidean is used to distinguish it from other spaces that were later discovered in physics and modern mathematics.
In mathematics, the polar coordinate system is a two-dimensional coordinate system in which each point on a plane is determined by a distance from a reference point and an angle from a reference direction. The reference point is called the pole, and the ray from the pole in the reference direction is the polar axis. The distance from the pole is called the radial coordinate, radial distance or simply radius, and the angle is called the angular coordinate, polar angle, or azimuth. Angles in polar notation are generally expressed in either degrees or radians.
In mathematics, a (real) interval is a set of real numbers that contains all real numbers lying between any two numbers of the set. For example, the set of numbers x satisfying 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 is an interval which contains 0, 1, and all numbers in between. Other examples of intervals are the set of numbers such that 0 < x < 1, the set of all real numbers , the set of nonnegative real numbers, the set of positive real numbers, the empty set, and any singleton.
Straightedge and compass construction, also known as ruler-and-compass construction or classical construction, is the construction of lengths, angles, and other geometric figures using only an idealized ruler and a pair of compasses.
In mathematics, a curve is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight.
In mathematics, a ball is the solid figure bounded by a sphere; it is also called a solid sphere. It may be a closed ball or an open ball.
In mathematics, the complex plane is the plane formed by the complex numbers, with a Cartesian coordinate system such that the x-axis, called real axis, is formed by the real numbers, and the y-axis, called imaginary axis, is formed by the imaginary numbers.
In mathematics, homogeneous coordinates or projective coordinates, introduced by August Ferdinand Möbius in his 1827 work Der barycentrische Calcul, are a system of coordinates used in projective geometry, as Cartesian coordinates are used in Euclidean geometry. They have the advantage that the coordinates of points, including points at infinity, can be represented using finite coordinates. Formulas involving homogeneous coordinates are often simpler and more symmetric than their Cartesian counterparts. Homogeneous coordinates have a range of applications, including computer graphics and 3D computer vision, where they allow affine transformations and, in general, projective transformations to be easily represented by a matrix.
In mathematics, an affine algebraic plane curve is the zero set of a polynomial in two variables. A projective algebraic plane curve is the zero set in a projective plane of a homogeneous polynomial in three variables. An affine algebraic plane curve can be completed in a projective algebraic plane curve by homogenizing its defining polynomial. Conversely, a projective algebraic plane curve of homogeneous equation h(x, y, t) = 0 can be restricted to the affine algebraic plane curve of equation h(x, y, 1) = 0. These two operations are each inverse to the other; therefore, the phrase algebraic plane curve is often used without specifying explicitly whether it is the affine or the projective case that is considered.
In elementary mathematics, a number line is a picture of a graduated straight line that serves as abstraction for real numbers, denoted by . Every point of a number line is assumed to correspond to a real number, and every real number to a point.
In mathematics, the upper half-plane, is the set of points (x, y) in the Cartesian plane with y > 0.
In mathematics, a square is the result of multiplying a number by itself. The verb "to square" is used to denote this operation. Squaring is the same as raising to the power 2, and is denoted by a superscript 2; for instance, the square of 3 may be written as 32, which is the number 9. In some cases when superscripts are not available, as for instance in programming languages or plain text files, the notations x^2 or x**2 may be used in place of x2.
Two-dimensional space is a geometric setting in which two values are required to determine the position of an element. The set of pairs of real numbers with appropriate structure often serves as the canonical example of a two-dimensional Euclidean space. For a generalization of the concept, see dimension.
In mathematics, a real number is a value of a continuous quantity that can represent a distance along a line. The adjective real in this context was introduced in the 17th century by René Descartes, who distinguished between real and imaginary roots of polynomials. The real numbers include all the rational numbers, such as the integer −5 and the fraction 4/3, and all the irrational numbers, such as . Included within the irrationals are the real transcendental numbers, such as π (3.14159265...). In addition to measuring distance, real numbers can be used to measure quantities such as time, mass, energy, velocity, and many more. The set of real numbers is denoted using the symbol R or and is sometimes called "the reals".
In mathematics, a unit circle is a circle of unit radius—that is, a radius of 1. Frequently, especially in trigonometry, the unit circle is the circle of radius 1 centered at the origin in the Cartesian coordinate system in the Euclidean plane. In topology, it is often denoted as S1 because it is a one-dimensional unit n-sphere.
In mathematics, the rational points on the unit circle are those points (x, y) such that both x and y are rational numbers ("fractions") and satisfy x2 + y2 = 1. The set of such points turns out to be closely related to primitive Pythagorean triples. Consider a primitive right triangle, that is, with integer side lengths a, b, c, with c the hypotenuse, such that the sides have no common factor larger than 1. Then on the unit circle there exists the rational point (a/c, b/c), which, in the complex plane, is just a/c + ib/c, where i is the imaginary unit. Conversely, if (x, y) is a rational point on the unit circle in the 1st quadrant of the coordinate system, then there exists a primitive right triangle with sides xc, yc, c, with c being the least common multiple of the denominators of x and y. There is a correspondence between points in the x-y plane and points a + ib in the complex plane which is used below.