Re: ArcTan[x,y]
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg3361] Re: ArcTan[x,y]
- From: fateman at peoplesparc.cs.berkeley.edu (Richard J. Fateman)
- Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 04:12:13 -0500
- Organization: University of California, Berkeley
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <4h13nr$rr4 at dragonfly.wolfram.com>, Bill Freed <billf at math.concordia.edmonton.ab.ca> wrote: >I am writing an article for a math education journal about the >conversion to and from polar coordinates. It would be useful to know >how the function ArcTan[x,y] is defined in Mathematica- by a single >formula, a Which statement or whatever? A rough description or the >Mathematica code would do. Note that mathematica's ArcTan REVERSES THE ARGUMENTS. atan2(y,x) is the tradition, e.g. for the last 40 years of Fortran, etc. ArcTan[x,y] is uniquely in Mathematica. I should hope that you have access to the definition without reference to Mathematica. -- Richard J. Fateman fateman at cs.berkeley.edu http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/ ==== [MESSAGE SEPARATOR] ====