orthogonal

or·thog·o·nal   (ôr-thŏg'ə-nəl)    adj.   Relating to or composed of right angles. Mathematics Of or relating to a matrix whose transpose equals its inverse. Of or relating to a linear transformation that preserves the length of vectors. [From Greek orthogōnios : ortho-, ortho- + gōniā, angle; see genu-1 in Indo-European roots.] or·thog'o·nal'i·ty (-nāl'ĭ-tē) n., or·thog'o·nal·ly adv.

Main Entry: or·thog·o·nal
Pronunciation: or-'thäg-&n-^&l
Function: adjective
1 a : lying or intersectingat right angles b : being, using, or made with three ECG leads whose axes are perpendicular to each other and to the frontal, horizontal, and sagittal axes of the body orthogonal leads were recorded simultaneously on magnetic tape —Massoud Nemati et al>
2 : statistically independent orthogonal … factors —O. D. Duncan>

orthogonal geometry
At 90 degrees (right angles).
N mutually orthogonal vectors span an N-dimensional vector space, meaning that, any vector in the space can be expressed as a linear combination of the vectors. This is true of any set of N linearly independent vectors.
The term is used loosely to mean mutually independent or well separated. It is used to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like linearly independent vectors in geometry, span the entire "capability space" and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent. For example, in logic, the set of operators "not" and "or" is described as orthogonal, but the set "nand", "or", and "not" is not (because any one of these can be expressed in terms of the others).
Also used loosely to mean "irrelevant to", e.g. "This may be orthogonal to the discussion, but ...", similar to "going off at a tangent".
See also orthogonal instruction set.
[The Jargon File]
(2002-12-02)