Orthogonal (computing)
In mathematics, orthogonality is the relation of two lines at right angles to one another (perpendicularity), and the generalization of this relation into n dimensions; and to a variety of mathematical relations thought of as describing non-overlapping, uncorrelated or independent objects of some kind.
The concept of orthogonality has been broadly generalized in mathematics (including in the areas of mathematical functions, calculus and linear algebra), as well as in areas such as chemistry and engineering.
The word comes from the Greek ὀρθός (orthos), meaning "upright", and γωνία (gonia), meaning "angle". The ancient Greek ὀρθογώνιον orthogōnion (< ὀρθός orthos 'upright' + γωνία gōnia 'angle') and classical Latin orthogonium originally denoted a rectangle. Later, they came to mean a right triangle. In the 12th century, the post-classical Latin word orthogonalis came to mean a right angle or something related to a right angle.
A set of vectors in an inner product space is called pairwise orthogonal if each pairing of them is orthogonal. Such a set is called an orthogonal set. Nonzero pairwise orthogonal vectors are always linearly independent.
In certain cases, the word normal is used to mean orthogonal, particularly in the geometric sense as in the normal to a surface. For example, the y-axis is normal to the curve y = x2 at the origin. However, normal may also refer to the magnitude of a vector. In particular, a set is called orthonormal (orthogonal plus normal) if it is an orthogonal set of unit vectors. As a result, use of the term normal to mean "orthogonal" is often avoided. The word "normal" also has a different meaning in probability and statistics.
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