radius vector
English
Noun
radius vector (plural radii vectores or radius vectors)
- (mathematics) A straight line (or the length of such line) connecting any point, as of a curve, with a fixed point, or pole, round which the straight line turns, and to which it serves to refer the successive points of a curve, in a system of polar coordinates.
- (astronomy) An ideal straight line joining the center of an attracting body with that of a body describing an orbit around it, as a line joining the sun and a planet or comet, or a planet and its satellite.
Translations
a straight line (or the length of such line) connecting any point
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Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “radius vector”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)