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1.1

Chapter One

Euclidean Three-Space

1.1 Introduction.

Let us briefly review the way in which we established a correspondence betweenthe real numbers and the points on a line, and between ordered pairs of real numbers andthe points in a plane. First, the line. We choose a point on a line and call it the

origin

.We choose one direction from the origin and call it the

positive

direction. The oppositedirection, not surprisingly, is called the

negative

direction. In a picture, we generallyindicate the positive direction with an arrow or a plus sign:Now we associate with each real number

a point on the line. First choose someunit of measurement on the line. For

0, associate with

the point on the line that is adistance

units from the origin in the positive direction. For

0, associate with

thepoint on the line that is a distance

units from the origin in the negative direction. Thenumber 0 is associated with the origin. A moments reflection should convince you thatthis procedure establishes a so-called

one-to-one correspondence

between the realnumbers and the points on a line. In other words, a real number determines exactly onepoint on a line, and, conversely, a point on the line determines exactly one real number.This line is called a

real line

.Next we establish a one-to-one correspondence between ordered pairs of realnumbers and points in a plane. Take a real line, called the

first axis

, and construct anotherreal line, called the

second axis

, perpendicular to it and passing through the origin of thefirst axis. Choose this point as the origin for the second axis. Now suppose we have anordered pair (,)

x x

of reals. The point in the plane associated with this ordered pair is

1.2

found by constructing a line parallel to the second axis through the point on the first axiscorresponding to the real number

, and constructing a line parallel to the first axisthrough the point on the second axis corresponding to the real number

. The point atwhich these two lines intersect is the point associated with the ordered pair (,)

x x

. Amoments reflection here will convince you that there is exactly one point in the plane thusassociated with an ordered pair (

), and each point in the plane is the point associatedwith some ordered pair (

):It is traditional to assume the point of view we have taken in this picture, in whichthe first axis is horizontal, the second axis is vertical, the positive direction on the firstaxis is to the right, and the positive direction on the second axis is up. We thus usuallyspeak of the

horizontal

axis and the

vertical

axis, rather than the first axis and the secondaxis. We also frequently abuse the language by speaking of a

point

(,)

x x

when, of course, we actually mean the point associated with the ordered pair (,)

x x

. Thenumbers

and

are called the

coordinates

of the point-

is the first coordinate and

is the second coordinate.Given any collection of ordered pairs( A collection of ordered pairs is called a

relation

.), a picture of the collection is obtained by simply looking at the set of points inthe plane corresponding to the pairs in the given collection. Suppose we have an equation

1.3

involving two variables, say

and

. Then this equation defines a collection of orderedpairs of numbers, namely all (,)

x y

that satisfy the equation. The corresponding picturein the plane is called the

graph

of the equation. For example, consider the equation

y x

. Let’s take a look at the graph of this equation. A little algebra (very little,actually), convinces us that{(,):}{(,):}{(,):}

x y y x x y y x x y y x

2422

= = = ∪ = −

,and we remember from the sixth grade that each of the sets on the right hand side of thisequation is a parabola: What do we do with all this? These constructions are, of course, the bases of analytic geometry, in which we join the subjects of algebra and geometry, to the benefit of both. A geometric figure (a subset of the plane ) corresponds to a collection of orderedpairs of real numbers. Algebraic facts about the collection of ordered pairs of real arereflected by geometric facts about the subset of the plane, and, conversely, geometric