How One Professor's Word 'Orthogonal' Shaped a Career in AI and Research

A software professional reflects on how a single word, 'orthogonal,' introduced by professor Sang Lyul Min during a university lecture, became a guiding principle throughout their career. The term, meaning independent or unrelated, was presented alongside early news of chess-playing computers and medical imaging breakthroughs that illustrated computing's expanding reach. Its full significance only became clear years later when the author engaged seriously with linear algebra, machine learning, and AI. In research and data science, orthogonality serves as a method for isolating unrelated variables and reducing complexity to its essential dimensions. The author describes the concept as still being absorbed, one that lives most naturally in academic papers and rigorous proofs rather than in messy real-world data.