Position (geometry)

In geometry, a position or position vector, also known as location vector or radius vector, is a Euclidean vector that represents a point P in space. Its length represents the distance in relation to an arbitrary reference origin O, and its direction represents the angular orientation with respect to given reference axes. Usually denoted x, r, or s, it corresponds to the straight line segment from O to P. In other words, it is the displacement or translation that maps the origin to P:^[1]

${\displaystyle \mathbf {r} ={\overrightarrow {OP}}.}$

The term position vector is used mostly in the fields of differential geometry, mechanics and occasionally vector calculus. Frequently this is used in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space, but can be easily generalized to Euclidean spaces and affine spaces of any dimension.^[2]