Definition: The abscissa (also called ordinate) on a coordinate plane refers to the horizontal distance between two points in the xy-plane, where the x-axis represents the horizontal axis of the graph and the y-axis represents the vertical axis. In other words, the abscissa is the horizontal position of a point on a number line. It can be measured from one endpoint of the x-axis (the positive or right side) to another endpoint (the negative or left side). For example: - If A has coordinates (1, 3) and B has coordinates (-5, -2), then AB would have abscissa of 6. In more mathematical terms, it can be expressed as follows: \[y = mx + b\] where \(m\) is the slope of the line passing through the points A and B, and \(b\) is the y-intercept (or y-coordinate) of the line. The slope (m) measures how steeply the line rises or falls at a given point. To find m, one can use the formula: \[m = \frac{y_2 - y_1}{x_2 - x_1}\] The y-intercept (b) is simply the y-coordinate of any point on the line. Note that abscissa and ordinate are not interchangeable; they represent different aspects of a line, but they both refer to the horizontal distance between two points in a coordinate plane.

abscisse