A Russian photographer captures wild Polar bears living in an abandoned island hut on Kolyuchin Island in the Chukotka Sea. | Future Russia

Polar curves are graphs that use polar coordinates instead of the usual x and y coordinates. Each point is described by a distance from the center, called the radius, and an angle measured from the positive x-axis. The relationship is written as r equals some function of theta. This way of plotting makes it easier to describe shapes that have natural symmetry around a center point. For instance, a circle centered at the origin can be written simply as r = 2, and a spiral can be written as r = th

Polar and Cartesian coordinates are two ways of describing the position of points in a plane. In the Cartesian system, each point is identified by an ordered pair (x, y), where x measures the horizontal distance and y measures the vertical distance from the origin. This system is built on two perpendicular axes and is very useful for representing straight lines, parabolas, and other algebraic shapes. Because it relies on a grid-like structure, the Cartesian system is often used in algebra and ge

Graphing Polar Equations