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The equation defining a plane curve expressed in polar coordinates is known as a polar equation. In many cases, such an equation can simply be specified by defining r as a function of φ . The resulting curve then consists of points of the form ( r ( φ ), φ ) and can be regarded as the graph of the polar function r .
Let (x, y, z) be the standard Cartesian coordinates, and (ρ, θ, φ) the spherical coordinates, with θ the angle measured away from the +Z axis (as , see conventions in spherical coordinates). As φ has a range of 360° the same considerations as in polar (2 dimensional) coordinates apply whenever an arctangent of it is taken. θ has a range ...
The equations defining the transformation in two dimensions, which rotates the xy axes counterclockwise through an angle into the x′y′ axes, are derived as follows. In the xy system, let the point P have polar coordinates ( r , α ) {\displaystyle (r,\alpha )} .
The Fermat spiral with polar equation = can be converted to the Cartesian coordinates (x, y) by using the standard conversion formulas x = r cos φ and y = r sin φ.Using the polar equation for the spiral to eliminate r from these conversions produces parametric equations for one branch of the curve:
In the cylindrical coordinate system, a z-coordinate with the same meaning as in Cartesian coordinates is added to the r and θ polar coordinates giving a triple (r, θ, z). [8] Spherical coordinates take this a step further by converting the pair of cylindrical coordinates (r, z) to polar coordinates (ρ, φ) giving a triple (ρ, θ, φ). [9]
The polar angle is denoted by [,]: it is the angle between the z-axis and the radial vector connecting the origin to the point in question. The azimuthal angle is denoted by φ ∈ [ 0 , 2 π ] {\displaystyle \varphi \in [0,2\pi ]} : it is the angle between the x -axis and the projection of the radial vector onto the xy -plane.
The equation of a circle is (x − a) 2 + (y − b) 2 = r 2 where a and b are the coordinates of the center (a, b) and r is the radius. Cartesian coordinates are named for René Descartes, whose invention of them in the 17th century revolutionized mathematics by allowing the expression of problems of geometry in terms of algebra and calculus.
Log-polar coordinates in the plane consist of a pair of real numbers (ρ,θ), where ρ is the logarithm of the distance between a given point and the origin and θ is the angle between a line of reference (the x-axis) and the line through the origin and the point.