CHAPTER11
Polar Coordinates
In This Chapter
- Computing the slope of the line tangent to a polar curve
- Determining the length of an arc of a polar curve
- Calculating area under a polar curve
As we talked about in Chapter 1, the study of mathematics would be quite different if Descartes had used a series of concentric circles when he tried to determine the location of the bug on the ceiling rather than the series of parallel and perpendicular lines that became the Rectangular Coordinate System (or better still, the Cartesian Coordinate System). We will take a little time in this chapter to examine some of the basics of calculus—slopes of tangent ...
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