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Polar Coordinate System



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In this lesson, we will introduce the polar coordinate system. Up to this point, we have only used the rectangular coordinate system to plot points (ordered pairs) and graph equations. In the rectangular coordinate system, each point in the plane is specified by giving the ordered pair (x, y) that represents the directed distances from the origin. The polar coordinate system is based on a point, called the pole (O) and a ray, called the polar axis, which is drawn in the direction of the positive x-axis. Each point P in the plane can be found using polar coordinates (r, θ), where r is the directed distance from O, the pole to P, the point in the polar plane and θ is the directed angle, measured counterclockwise from the polar axis to the ray OP.
Polar Coordinate System Resources:
Videos:
YouTube - Video YouTube - Video
Text Lessons:
CSUSB EDU - Text Lesson She Loves Math - Text Lesson
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