cylindrical coordinates [sə′lin·drə·kəl ‚kō′ȯrd·ən·əts]
Cylindrical Coordinates
(mathematics)
A system of curvilinear coordinates in which the position of a point in space is determined by its perpendicular distance from a given line, its distance from a selected reference plane perpendicular to this line, and its angular distance from a selected reference line when projected onto this plane.
Cylindrical Coordinates
The cylindrical coordinates of a point M are the three numbers r, θ, and z characterizing the position of M in space (see Figure 1). The coordinates are called cylindrical because the coordinate surface r = const is a cylinder
Figure 1
whose elements are parallel to the z-axis. The relation between the cylindrical coordinates and the rectangular coordinates x, y, and z of M is given by the equations x = r cos θ, y = r sin θ, and z = z.
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