What Do Owls Dream?

Dear Sensei:

Can you please explain this whole coordinate plane thing? I'm completely baffled by all these negatives and positives. I can't stand it!

Sincerely, 

Buddy Lembeck

Sure thing, Buddy. It's not as bad as it seems. You see, the coordinate plane, which tells you exactly where to put points on a flat surface, is divided into two dimensions, x and y, which we talked about last time.

 

From these two lines, it is divided into four sections, called quadrants. For some reason, they are always noted with Roman numerals, one through four.

It may seem a little strange to start in the upper right hand corner, and then work your way around, but it may help if you think of drawing a big C. You can remember this because the C stands for "cool", because Math is cool! (Yeah, no one ever buys that. I always try, though.)

From here, you can remember that point of origin is (0,0) from the last post. To the left of that are the negative numbers, and to the right are the positive numbers. On the y axis, everything above the point of origin are positive numbers, and everything below it are negative.

Here are some examples using (6,3). You'll notice how things change when you turn either one or both negative. 

You can always remember that anything with two positive coordinates will be in the first quadrant. And then the others follow suit from there. (-,+) is in the second quadrant, (-,-) is in the third, and (+,-) is in the fourth. 

(-,-) looks like the owl is sleeping. That one's my favorite.

I hope this helps clear a few things up for you, Buddy. Have a great day, and don't forget to learn something today.