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In geometry, a straight line, usually abbreviated line, is an infinitely long object with no width, depth, or curvature, an idealization of such physical objects as a straightedge, a taut string, or a ray of light. Lines are spaces of dimension one, which may be embedded in spaces of dimension two, three, or higher.
A depth discontinuity is where the observer’s line of sight jumps from the surface of an object to the background (i.e., is tangent to the surface), as occurs at the sides of a cylinder. The same contour might mark both an orientation and depth discontinuity, as with the back edge of a brick.
In studying geometry one concentrates on the position of points and on the length, orientation and curvature of lines. Geometrical–optical illusions then relate in the first instance to object characteristics as defined by geometry.
Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, Elements.Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions from these.
However, an open line segment is an open set in V if and only if V is one-dimensional. More generally than above, the concept of a line segment can be defined in an ordered geometry. A pair of line segments can be any one of the following: intersecting, parallel, skew, or none of these. The last possibility is a way that line segments differ ...
Thus, a line segment AB defined as the points A and B and all the points between A and B in absolute geometry, needs to be reformulated. A line segment in this new geometry is determined by three collinear points A, B and C and consists of those three points and all the points not separated from B by A and C. There are further consequences.
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Thus the axiom of projective geometry, requiring all pairs of lines in a plane to intersect, is confirmed. [2] Given P and Q in σ, the elliptic distance between them is the measure of the angle POQ, usually taken in radians. Arthur Cayley initiated the study of elliptic geometry when he wrote "On the definition of distance".