Conventions
The radial coordinate is often denoted by r, and the angular coordinate by θ or t.
Angles in polar notation are generally expressed in either degrees or radians (2π rad being equal to 360°). Degrees are traditionally used in navigation, surveying, and many applied disciplines, while radians are more common in mathematics and mathematical physics.
In many contexts, a positive angular coordinate means that the angle θ is measured counterclockwise from the axis.
In mathematical literature, the polar axis is often drawn horizontal and pointing to the right.
Read more about this topic: Polar Coordinate System
Famous quotes containing the word conventions:
“What people don’t realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal rules—don’t take somebody else’s boyfriend unless you’ve been specifically invited to do so, don’t take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole—so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)