What are Polar Coordinates?

Polar coordinates are a two-dimensional coordinate system used to locate points in a plane. Unlike the Cartesian coordinate system, which uses perpendicular axes (x and y) to represent points, the polar coordinate system uses a radial distance and an angle.

In polar coordinates, a point is represented by an ordered pair (r, θ), where:

• r is the length from the origin to the point (radius).
• θ is the angle are decided clockwise from a reference direction (normally the positive x-axis) to the line segment which connects origin and the point (polar angle).

Here,

• The radial distance ‘r’ is measured from the origin outward in any direction.
• The angle θ is measured counterclockwise from the reference direction (usually the positive x-axis).

Polar Coordinates is a mathematical system that is used to obtain the points in a plane of two dimensions by the distance from a fixed point (the coordinate point of origin) and the angle from a specific direction (it is usually the positive x-axis).

Some of the applications of polar coordinates include fields such as navigation, engineering, physics, and biology. In this article, we will discuss all the applications of polar coordinates with examples.