- Octant
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An octant is one of eight divisions.
Contents
Octant in the plane
Traditionally wind direction is given as one of the 8 octants (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) because that is more accurate than merely giving one of the 4 quadrants, and the wind vane typically does not have enough accuracy to bother with more precise indication.
Octant in three-dimensional space
An octant is one of the eight divisions of a Euclidean three-dimensional coordinate system defined by the signs of the coordinates. It is similar to the two-dimensional quadrant and the one-dimensional ray. [1]
Usually, the octant with all three positive coordinates is referred to as the first octant. There is no generally used naming convention for the other seven octants.
- first octant (+, +, +)
- top-back-right (−, +, +)
- top-back-left (−, −, +)
- top-front-left (+, −, +)
- bottom-front-left (+, −, −)
- bottom-back-left (−, −, −)
- bottom-back-right (−, +, −)
- bottom-front-right (+, +, −)
Multi-dimensional space
The multi-dimensional generalization of the octant is the orthant, also called hyperoctant. An n-dimensional space is divided into 2n hyperoctants.
References
- ^ Weisstein, Eric W., "Octant" from MathWorld.
Categories:- Geometric shapes
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