Clifford parallel

In elliptic geometry, two lines are Clifford parallel or paratactic lines if the perpendicular distance between them is constant from point to point. The concept was first studied by William Kingdon Clifford in elliptic space. Since parallel lines have the property of equidistance, the term "parallel" was appropriated from Euclidean geometry, but in fact the "lines" of elliptic geometry are curves, and they have finite length, unlike the lines of Euclidean geometry. The algebra of quaternions provides a descriptive geometry of elliptic space in which Clifford parallelism is made explicit.