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What's a "cross section?

For example, surface area of a cross section. It can't just mean the intersecting point.
Puzzling by Puzzling
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If you take a three dimensional object and imagine slicing it with a straight plane, the resulting shape is the cross section.

For example if you had a cake (a wide, flat cylinder) and sliced it parallel to the table, the cross section would be a circle.

If you took that same shape and sliced it up and down, then looked at it from the side, it would look like a rectangle.
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Other Answers (3)

  • D.W. by D.W.
    A Top Contributor is someone who is knowledgeable in a particular category.
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    A Top Contributor is someone who is knowledgeable in a particular category.
    It's the intersecting points, plural. The intersection of a plane and a solid.

    In statistics, a cross-section is a data sample that is typical of the entire population.
  • tiggs1515 by tiggs151...
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    If you had a shpere, you cut it right down the middle and get a flat surface. That would be a cross section.
  • Shawn7400 by Shawn740...
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    It is the intersection of an n-dimentional body and an (n+1)-dimentional body. For example, the intersection of a plane (2-dimentional) and a cube(2+1, or 3-dimentional), the intersection of a line line and a plane, or the intersection of a sphere and a hypercube. The intersection doesn't have to be "right down the middle"; they may intersect anywhere. There are infinitely many parallel crossections of any body. It is used as a way to show the composition of something when it would normally be obscured by itself.

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