Talk:Spherical coordinate system

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Previous discussions pertaining to the old article have been archived to Talk:Spherical coordinate system/Archive. --Carl ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

This article itself states that the international recommended standard for spherical polars is r, ϑ, φ for distance, zenith, and azimuth. If this is so, why use the american convention for the rest of the article? Shouldn't we use the international convention on the basis of the international applicability of the article?

In the diagram, the "r" length isn't the "r" mentioned in the text right? It's confusing that it was labelled r.

Perhaps there should be different diagrams for the different coordinate systems. Unfortunately, someone has to draw them. Shinobu 10:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The symbols in the text and in the figure don't match. for instance: the azimuth angle in the text is referred to as θ, but the same symbol is taken for the polar angle in the diagramm. The polar angle in the text is a small phi (φ) and a capital phi (Φ) is taken for the azimuth angle in the figure. That is very confusing. (RolandRo 12:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

I have about the same problem, but all phi:s in the text are small (lowercase). I think it's the weird TeX small phi, that looks very much like a capital phi. It's a matter of different fonts. Rursus 18:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this statement is correct:

The longitude is the azimuth angle shifted 180° from θ to give a domain of -180° ≤ θ ≤ 180°.

Assuming the x axis goes from the center of the Earth through the equator at 0 deg longitude, then I believe the correct wording is:

The longitude is the azimuth angle but for 180° < θ < 360°, subtract 360° so that -180° < longitude ≤ 180°.

Actually, it would probably be more correct to bring up East and West when talking about longitude, but in any case, saying a shift by 180 deg is wrong (unless the x axis is supposed to point through the 180 deg longitude point which I doubt) DaraParsavand 19:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)