Drawing parallel line segments

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About this video

This video uses practice questions to draw parallel line segments and a parallel ray. It shows that joining points the wrong way gives segments that would meet if extended, and it reviews that a segment has two endpoints, a ray has one endpoint, and a line has none.

You'll be able to

  • join points to make two parallel line segments.
  • tell whether two segments are parallel by imagining them extended.
  • explain how many endpoints a segment, a ray and a line have.

Key words

parallel
Going in the same direction and never meeting, even if extended.
line segment
A straight path with two endpoints.
ray
A straight path with one endpoint that continues forever in one direction.
endpoint
A point where a segment or ray ends.
Transcript

Any pair of points can be connected by a line segment. That's right. Connect two pairs of black points in a way that creates two parallel line segments. So let's see if we can do that. So I could create one segment that connects this point to this point and then another one that connects this point to this point.

And they look pretty parallel. In fact, I think this is the right answer. If we did it another way, if we had connected that point to that point and this point to this point, then it wouldn't look so parallel. These clearly, if they were to keep going, they would intersect at some point.

So let me set it back up the way I did it the first time. Let me make these two points parallel. And these are line segments because they have two end points. They each have two end points. And they continue forever. Well they don't continue forever. They continue forever in no directions, in zero directions.

If it was a ray, it would continue forever in one direction. If it's a line, it continues forever past both of these points. In fact, it wouldn't have end points because it would just continue forever in both of these directions. Let's do one more. Drag the ray so it has an endpoint at A, so we want to make its endpoint at A where the ray terminates and goes through one of the other black points.

The ray should also be parallel to the pink line. So I have two options. I could make it go through this black point, but it's clearly not parallel. In fact, it looks perpendicular here. So let's try to make it go through this point. Well, yes, when I do that, it does indeed look like my ray is parallel to the pink line.

And this is a ray because it has one endpoint. This is where the ray terminates. It's an endpoint. It literally ends there. And it continues forever in one direction. In this case, the direction is to the right. It continues forever to the right. So it continues forever in one-- continues forever in one direction.

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