Spherical coordinate systems
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In many cases, the Cartesian coordinate system is not the most convenient one to describe the position. For example, when we should like to define a position on the surface of a sphere, it is more convenient the express the position with certain angles. On the surface of the Earth, we use longitudes and latitudes to specify the position of a place. The reference objects in a spherical coordinate system are
Using these, we can specify the coordinates of a point P:
In two dimensions, coordinates are reduced to
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