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II. Short Answer Questions · Q1

Q.Explain what is meant by a Cartesian coordinate system.

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✓ Free question

Step 1. A Cartesian coordinate system fixes three mutually perpendicular reference axes, xx, yy and zz, intersecting at a common point called the origin OO.

Step 2. Any point in space is then uniquely located by three numbers, its coordinates (x,y,z)(x,y,z) — the perpendicular distances of the point from the three coordinate planes (the yzyz-, zxzx- and xyxy-planes).

Step 3. Physics conventionally uses the right-handed version of this system: curling the right-hand fingers from +x+x towards +y+y makes the thumb point along +z+z. This fixes signs consistently in later vector operations (especially the cross product).

✓Final answer

A Cartesian coordinate system is the right-handed set of three mutually perpendicular axes x,y,zx,y,z through an origin OO, used to locate any point by its coordinates (x,y,z)(x,y,z).

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