WT30: Polar coordinates and rational trigonometry

[hanko2001]

In traditional polar coordinates of r (radial distance) and theta (angle up from positive x-axis), every point in the plane has an infinite number of representations. With rational polar coordinates of Q (quadrance) and s (spread to the right of the positive y-axis), every point has only one representation, yes?

[njwildberger]

That's right. With rational polar coordinates we also need two more bits of info to remove the possible ambiguity of the quadrant.

[RationArtiste]

Nice to be able to get rid of transcendental functions.