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a purple circle with a green dot in the center and green arrows leading from the center to the circumference of the circle: what is a point?

What is a point? A circle is the set of points in a plane that are all the same distance away from a center point.

What is a point?

A point is like the tiniest dot you can imagine. It is so small that it doesn’t take up any room at all. It’s not an actual object, because it doesn’t take up any space. It’s the idea of a point – the idea of the tiniest spot.

When we draw a point with our pencil, we make it big enough to see, but that’s much bigger than a point really is – a point has no size at all.

Definition of a point

In mathematics, the definition of a point is that it is a precise location on a plane. A point isn’t a thing, it’s a place.

A point, a line, a plane, a solid…

Sometimes a point can be the endpoint of a line, if the line begins at a certain point and then stretches off to infinity from there. Two points show you where a line goes. One of the axioms or basic ideas of geometry is that there is a line that connects any two points, but only one line and no more.

(Read more about lines)

Three points, if you connect them with lines, make a triangle, and four points make a rectangle, or a trapezoid, or a rhombus (a quadrilateral).

A circle is a set of points

Points are also very important in drawing a circle: we can think of a circle as the set of points that are all the same distance from one center point of the circle.

Electrons and points

An electron, seen from one point of view, is a point – it has no mass, so it doesn’t take up any room. It exists only in one point.

(More about electrons)

Want another source? This one has a cool animation to help you understand what a point is.

More about lines
More about Geometry

Bibliography and further reading about geometry:

More about Geometry
More Easy Math
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