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Name:_______________________ Date assigned:______________ Band:________
Precalculus | Packer Collegiate Institute

Graphing in Polar

Warm Up:
1. Put this in standard form for a circle:
2 2
4 6 2 x y x y + + =




2. Graph the following:
(a) 3 y =

(b) 2 x =

(c)
2 2
4 x y + =

(d)
2 2
( ( ) 4 ) 2 3 x y + + =

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
x
y
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
x
y
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
x
y
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
x
y
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Section 1: Graphing some Basic Polar Equations
Before creating the first two graphs, look at the Warm Up 2a. For 2a, the equation given did not involve x.
What did that mean for when you graphed it?

1. Use your response to try to see if you can graph the following polar equations.
(a) 4 r =

(b) / 6 5 u t =

(a) 2 r =

(b) / 2 u t =


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2. Now what would happen if we wanted to graph the following two things in polar?
(a)

(b)


In rectangular coordinates, these would be easy equations! For (a) the equation is: _____________________________
For (b) the equation is: _____________________________
However in polar coordinates, things are slightly different
But hark, lets remember the conversions we used in the last class!

sin
cos
y
x r
r
u
u =
=

So we can use these equalities to rewrite our equations in polar! For (a) the equation is: _________________________
For (b) the equation is: _________________________
3. The circle
2 2
25 x y + = is a circle with radius 5. Use the conversions
sin
cos
y
x r
r
u
u =
=
to rewrite this circle equation
in its polar form.







1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
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4. The circle
2 2
( 2 ( 1) 25 ) y x + + = is a circle with radius 5. Use the conversions
sin
cos
y
x r
r
u
u =
=
to rewrite this circle
equation in its polar form.






5. In the past few problems, youve converted from rectangular to polar. Im going to give you an example of how
to convert in the opposite direction. Remember we have the conversions
2 2 2
tan if 0
r x y
y
x
x u =
+
=
=
and
sin
cos
y
x r
r
u
u =
=
.

To convert, for example, 8si ) n( r u = from polar to rectangular we need to get everything in terms of x and y.
One useful technique you will be using often is figuring out how to alter equations so you can get
2
r s (so you
can replace that with xs and ys) and so you can get cos r u and sin r u (again, so you can replace them with xs
and ys).

In our case, if we multiply both sides of 8si ) n( r u = by r , we immediately get
2
5 sin r r u = .
Thus:
2 2
8 x y y + = .
Completing the square so it looks like it is in proper circle form, we get:
2 2
( 4) 16 x y + = .
Thus, we should get a circle of radius 4 centered at (0,4).

Sometimes you might not be able to get it into a nice form. For example, to convert
2
sin r u = , you might start
by multiplying both sides by r to get:
3
sin r r u = . Well, at this point, you have to use straight brute force,
because although the right hand side simplifies nicely to y, the left hand side is ugly!

We get:
2 2 3/2
( ) y x y + =

Try for yourself!
(a) 6cos r u = (b) 6cos 10sin r u u =








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(c) n 1 si r u = + (d) 2 r =









(e)
4
1 cos
r
u
=

(f)
3
3 cos
r
u
=

















Extra Practice:
Sullivan, Section 9.1 #67-74