Coordinate Plane

In mathematics, the coordinate plane is a name for the plane , where points are given a coordinate that is a combination of the x-axis and y-axis. These two axes are known as the principal axes of the coordinate plane and their Intersection is the origin.

Réné Descartes, a dualist of Renaissance France, is generally credited with the idea of coordinatizing the plane. This concept allowed mathematicians to move beyond polyhedra, circles, ellipses and use numerical values to analyze more complicated geometric objects such as Parabolae, hyperbolae, and other curves. This advance gave birth to the field of analytic geometry, a precursor to calculus.