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Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM [message #62822]

Sun, 12 October 2008 11:45

jameskuyper
Messages: 79
Registered: October 2007

Member

Karlo Janos wrote:
> Thanks for your comments!
> My confusion was caused by the contradictory statements about theta and
> phi.

What contradiction do you see within those statements?

> ... In my opinion/definition theta is the azimuthal angle (and _not_
> 'colatitudinal' as stated in the help document) and phi is the polar
> angle (and _not_ 'longitudinal').

That may be your opinion; but the definitions of theta and phi are
fundamentally arbitrary. There are conventions, of course, but different
conventions are followed by different groups.

I've got about 100 advanced math and physics books in my library. I just
did a quick survey of them, and 9 of them mention spherical coordinates
or spherical harmonics in the index. Here's my results:

Theta is azimuthal, phi is polar:
=================================
"Mathematical Analysis" - Apostol

Theta is polar, phi is azimuthal:
=================================
"Special Functions and their applications" - Lebedev
"Mathematical Methosds for Physicists" - Arfken
"Large Scale Structure of Spacetime" - Hawking & Ellis
"General Relativitiy" - Wald
"The Structure of Matter" - Gasiorowicz
"Quantum Mechanics" - Metzbacher
"Quantum Mechanics" - Messiah
"Gravitation" - Misner, Thorne, Wheeler
"Classical Electrodynamics" - Jackson
"Classical Electromagnetic Radiation" - Marion

You may work in a field where different conventions hold, but the
convention used by SPHER_HARM is at the very least a widely used convention.

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[Message index]

		Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM By: jameskuyper on Sun, 12 October 2008 11:45
		Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM By: Karlo Janos on Sun, 12 October 2008 04:41
		Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM By: Kenneth P. Bowman on Thu, 09 October 2008 06:22
		Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM By: jameskuyper on Thu, 09 October 2008 10:18
		Re: Range of "Spherical Coordinates" in SPHER_HARM By: Karlo Janos on Mon, 13 October 2008 00:22

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