Position (geometry)

Vector representing the position of a point with respect to a fixed origin / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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In geometry, a position or position vector, also known as location vector or radius vector, is a Euclidean vector that represents the position of a point P in space in relation to an arbitrary reference origin O. Usually denoted x, r, or s, it corresponds to the straight line segment from O to P. In other words, it is the displacement or translation that maps the origin to P:[1]

Radius_vector_-_position_vector_-_ortsvektor_-_radijvektor.svg
Radius vector represents the position of a point with respect to origin O. In Cartesian coordinate system .

The term position vector is used mostly in the fields of differential geometry, mechanics and occasionally vector calculus.

Frequently this is used in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space, but can be easily generalized to Euclidean spaces and affine spaces of any dimension.[2]