Anyone wonder how there's horizontal and vertical yet in math it's called x and y instead of h and?

Question

which in turn would probably make it more easier to learn and even think about? Also would like one's input on the matter

Answer 1

I've always thought of this in terms of standing on the goal line of a football field: "x" is the width (sideline to sideline), "y" is the length (from one end to the other), and "z" is height (as if you kicked the ball straight upward.) I never thought too much in terms of horizontal and vertical.

Answer 2

we live in a 3d world, so if you get into 3d, then there's x, y, and z!!!

there's other ways of doing graphs too, i'm sure you've seen something that looks like the bulls eye on the chalkboard. with that one, they use r, theta, and z...ouch!

the reason they use x is because it's just soooo widely and universally used since grade school all the way through college. it's just sticking to a single thing to make your life easier.

if you use "horizontal" and "vertical", what do you call the third dimension anyway?

Answer 3

yes its true if we use h to represent horizontal and v to represent vertical it would be much easier for us to understand mathematics but the teacher nowadays they are not the one who created maths so they just have o continue with the old routine but its quite interesting the two letters they use more in the maths because they are rarely used individually

Answer 4

h and v might make more sense to English speakers but not all mathematicians speak English as a first language in fact a good many don't. Rene Descartes, who invented analytic geometry, was French and lived in a time when many scholarly works were writtein in Latin. X and Y are universal conventions, so we're pretty much stuck with them.

Answer 5

x and y come from algebra. x stands for the unknown quantity that is to be found, and if there are two such quantities, take the next letter in the alphabet, y. Descartes then carried over the x and y when he drew out the xy plane and so converted geometry into algebra. I suppose h and v would be more mnemonic, but that is the traditional names for them now. Call them xorizontal and yertical if you want.

Answer 6

That's an excellent question. It probably has something to do with using the x and y variables in math, but I'm not sure which came first, so maybe the graph came first, and they took the variables from that to make our formulas. I should've paid better attention in high school.

Answer 7

They used to be called ordinate and abscissa!
The names are arbitrary, and arrived at by convention, not a priori necessity. You could call them mamas and zebras and do the math just the same.

Answer 8

No.
Took a lot of math classes. Maybe other choices looked like #'s.

Answer 9

x and y are just variables