Trevor Pythagoras

Polar co-ordinates are a different co-ordinate scheme to the standard Cartesian co-ordinates. Again any point in a 2D plane can be located using only two numbers.

It works by taking an “initial line” (shown in red — the equivalent of the positive x axis in Cartesian co-ordinates) with the origin at one end. Then any point can be found by drawing a line from the point to the origin and quoting the length of this line (the radius) and the angle the line makes with the origin. These numbers are usually written in brackets in the same way as Cartesian co-ordinates with the radius first followed by the angle. For example look at the point (3,π/3) below.

The point (3,pi/3) in Polar Co-ordinates

Note// The angles are usually measured in radians

Cartesian Equivalent of Polar Co-ordinates

Since both Cartesian and polar co-ordinates are a way of describing a point position in a 2D plane it is possible to convert between then. When doing this the initial line is taken as the x-axis.

To find the Cartesian co-ordinates we must use trigonometry by drawing a vertical line down from the point to the x-axis to form a right angled triangle. The length of the vertical line then gives the y- coordinate and its distance from the origin gives the x-coordinate.

To find the x and y values for the point (r,Θ) we must therefore use the equations

x = rcosΘ

and

y = rsinΘ

If we want to go in reverse to find the polar co-ordinates of the point (x,y) in a Cartesian system we must solve these equations simultaneously.

We can eliminate Θ by squaring both of the equations to obtain

x² = r²cos²Θ
and
y² = r²sin²Θ

and then adding these equations to get

x² + y² = r²(cos²Θ + sin²Θ)

by substituting the trigonometric identity sin²+cos² = 1 to get

x² + y² = r²

we have removed Θ and can therefore calculate r using
r =√(x² + y²)

To find Θ we can divide the two equations given at the start such that the r’s cancel to get
y/x = sin Θ/cos Θ
which using the identity tan Θ=sin Θ/cos Θ gives

Θ = tan^-1(y/x)