radius vector

English

Noun

radius vector (plural radii vectores or radius vectors)

  1. (geometry) Of a point, a vector going from the origin to that point; equivalently, the transpose of the point.
    Synonym: position vector
  2. (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

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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.)

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