How do you convert r=9 into cartesian form?

1 Answer
Dec 1, 2015

Use the equality r2=x2+y2 to find the converted form
x2+y2=81

Explanation:

The question How do you convert rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates? has a list of equations used when converting between polar and rectangular systems along with their derivations.

For this problem, we will be using
r2=x2+y2

If we square both sides of the of r=9 we get

r2=81

Now we can use the above equality to substitute in x and y to get

x2+y2=81

Note that this should make sense intuitively, as r=9 in polar coordinates is all points of distance 9 from the origin, that is, a circle of radius 9 centered at the origin, and the formula for a circle of radius s centered at (h,k) in Cartesian coordinates is (xh)2+(yk)2=s2.
Thus a circle of radius 9 centered at the origin would have the formula (x0)2+(y0)2=92