What is spherical polar coordinate system?

1 Answer
Jul 9, 2015

We can describe any point in 3 dimensional space using a radius #r# and two angles #theta# and #phi# as:

#(r cos theta cos phi, r sin theta cos phi, r sin phi)#

Explanation:

We can describe any point in the X-Y plane as #(r cos theta, r sin theta)#, where #r# is the radius and #theta# is an angle from the #x# axis.

Then rotate into the Z dimension by rotating by angle #phi# about a line in the X-Y plane through the origin perpendicular to the radius.

That results in a point #(r cos theta cos phi, r sin theta cos phi, r sin phi)#

This point lies on the sphere of radius #r#