Display Polar Equations in a Table on the TI-83 Plus

After you’ve entered the polar equations into the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator, you can have the calculator create a table of the values of the polar equations. To create a table, follow these steps:

1. Highlight the equal sign of those polar equations in the Y= editor that you want to appear in the table.

   Only polar equations defined in the Y= editor with a highlighted equal sign will appear in the table. To highlight or unhighlight an equal sign, press [Y=], use the

   

   keys to place the cursor on the equal sign in the definition of the polar equation, and then press [ENTER] to toggle the equal sign between highlighted and unhighlighted.

2. Press [2nd][WINDOW] to access the Table Setup editor.

   

3. Enter a number in TblStart and then press [ENTER].

   TblStart is the first value of the independent variable

   

   to appear in the table.

   To enter the number you’ve chosen for TblStart, place the cursor on the number appearing after the equal sign, press the number keys to enter your number, and then press [ENTER].

4. Enter a number in

   

   and then press [ENTER].

   

   provides the increment for the independent variable

   

   You usually want to set

   

   equal to a small number.

   To enter the number you’ve chosen for

   

   place the cursor on the number appearing after the equal sign, press the number keys to enter your number, and then press [ENTER].

5. Set the mode for Indpnt and Depend.

   To change the mode of either Indpnt or Depend, use the

   

   keys to place the cursor on the desired mode, either Auto or Ask, and then press [ENTER].

   To have the calculator automatically generate the table for you, put both Indpnt and Depend in Auto mode.

   If you want to create a user-defined table in which you specify which values of the independent variable

   

   are to appear in the table and then have the calculator figure out the corresponding values of the polar equations, put Indpnt in Ask mode and Depend in Auto mode. How you construct the table is explained in Step 6.

   For a user-defined table, you don’t have to assign values to TblStart and

   

   in the Table Setup editor.

   The other combinations of mode settings for Indpnt and Depend are not especially useful when you’re dealing with polar equations.

   

6. Press [2nd][GRAPH] to display the table.