this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Because math works with Y up. Physics steal from math, engeneering steals from physics, so, here you are.

What I can't get is imperial measurement system. Apparently, nobody but americans can. And that stuff is far worse than Y and Z switching places.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

as a minecraft player learning how to use autocad, i thought y up was alot more ubiquitous then it apparently is

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's what I don't get. Why would they make Z up when in algebra, Y is up. It's all based on math, shouldn't we keep consistent on that?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Because the z axis is represented as an extension of the xy-plane, coming out of the paper essentially, so we represent it as up

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What I can't get is imperial measurement system. Apparently, nobody but americans can

I'm not American but I've been living in the USA for ten years and I still have trouble with imperial measurements. It's painful dealing with fractions of an inch instead of millimeters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not true though. While there isn't a standard, convention is to have z up in mathematics, as z is extending the xy plane we normally work with into a third space.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Might depend on where you were learning.

On paper, when I was learning Descartes' coordibate system, we used Y as up and X as left-right. And when it was time to plot in 3D, we used Z to "extend" the plane into yourself and away from yourself.

You just hold your sheet of paper perpendicular to the ground (or just use a whiteboard) and it all makes sense.