How do you express the Cartesian coordinates (0, - 3) as polar coordinates?

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Answer 1 · 2016-03-03T12:32:06

$(3,-(3pi)/2)$

Cartesian coordinates $(x,y)$ can be written as polar coordinates as $(r,theta)$ , where $r=sqrt(x^2+y^2)$ and $theta=tan^-1(y/x)$ .

Hence, $(0,-3)$ can be written as

$(sqrt(0^2+(-3)^2), tan^-1(-3/0)$ or $(3,tan^-1(-oo))$

$(3,-(3pi)/2)$

Answer 2 · 2016-03-03T13:23:47

$(3, 3pi/2)$ or $(3, -pi/2)$ or $(-3, pi/2)$

If r is reckoned positive, $theta$ is either $3pi/2 or -pi/2$ .
If the convention allows r to be negative, it could be in the third form..