Axis & Coordinates

Learn about graphs. In this introductory video we will introduce coordinates, quadrants and the two axis: x-axis and y-axis. The x-axis is the horizontal one, and the y-axis is the vertical one. You can remember this as "you go along the corridor before you go up the stairs", so as x is before y in the alphabet x is the along and y is the up. The axis meet at the origin, this has the coordinates (0, 0). The x-axis is positive from the origin and going to the right. And then has negative numbers going from the origin to the left. The y-axis is positive from the origin and going upwards. And the y-axis is negative from the origin going down. Coordinates are written as two numbers, and help us to navigate around a graph. The first number (x, y) represents the x-value and the second number represents the y-value. (2, 5) would be 2 to the right of the origin and 5 up. The graph is separated into 4 areas called quadrants. Where both x and y values are positive is quadrant 1, and then the numbers go anticlockwise. So the top left quarter (negative x, positive y) is quadrant 2, bottom left quarter (negative x, negative y) is quadrant 3. And the bottom right quarter (positive x, negative y) is quadrant 4. Over the next 10 or so videos we will cover everything that you need to know about graphs, that you learn in school.