the angle between the axes is 90 degree - discussion

[shahar]

Why the angle between x-axis to y-axis is defined as 90 degrees?
I think that the reason of the question why is not lower than 90 degrees as the reason of lossing information. Right?
But what will happen if the angle will be higher than 90 degree, it also have be lost of information?
What will be if we have defined domain of the graph? Is in this case, it will work?

 

[blamocur]

Why the angle between x-axis to y-axis is defined as 90 degrees?
I think that the reason of the question why is not lower than 90 degrees as the reason of lossing information. Right?
But what will happen if the angle will be higher than 90 degree, it also have be lost of information?
What will be if we have defined domain of the graph? Is in this case, it will work?

There is nothing wrong with using non-orthogonal coordinate axis. It might not be convenient in many situations, but as long as the angle is non-zero and not equal to 180 degress it is not wrong.

 

[Dr.Peterson]

Why the angle between x-axis to y-axis is defined as 90 degrees?
I think that the reason of the question why is not lower than 90 degrees as the reason of losing information. Right?
But what will happen if the angle will be higher than 90 degree, it also have be loss of information?
What will be if we have defined domain of the graph? Is in this case, it will work?

When the Cartesian coordinate system was first invented (by Descartes and others), the axes were not required to be perpendicular; this resulted in an oblique coordinate system. That is entirely legal! But using perpendicular axes makes many calculations (such as distance between points) much easier, so that is now standard.

I have found it very hard to find an example of what they did, but here is one mention of it:

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Without perpendicular axes, no information is lost. It is just harder to do some things -- but in some cases is better adapted to a particular problem.