Polar Functions

We're ready to practice using polar coordinates.

Polar functions are the perfect opportunity to practice. We can think of polar functions like a bear itself—a polar bear in this case. We need to wrangle the polar bear for our confrontation with the calculus bear.

First, a few basics. A polar function is a function described by an equation of the form

r = (θ).

The values of θ to be used will often be specified by an inequality αθβ.

The polar function r = (θ) can also be described by the parametric equations