Objectives
- Relate polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates and to plot polar functions having the form r = f(θ) with background polar "graph paper" on screen
About the Lesson
Many students' first introduction to polar coordinates comes in their study of calculus. Rectangular graph paper has grid lines that are associated with constant values of x or y, the rectangular coordinates (x, y). Polar graph paper has grid lines that are associated with constant values of r or θ, the polar coordinates (r, θ).