degrees and radians.

[Jim Richardson]

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On Sat, 04 May 2002 08:30:58 GMT,
 Tim Hammerquist <tim at vegeta.ath.cx> wrote:
> Tim Hammerquist graced us by uttering:
>> Jim Richardson graced us by uttering:
>>> I am trying to get the math module to deal with degrees rather than
>>> radians. (that it deals with radians for the angular functions like
>>> sin() isn't mentioned in the docs, which was sort of an eyeopener :)
>>> I can't find any info on doing this. I can convert from-to degrees in
>>> the code calling the function, but that's a bit clunky. Any pointers
>>> to an FM to R? :)
>> 
>> Radians are what trig is based on. Otherwise the formula for the area
>> of a circle would be 'A = 360r'; since when does a unit circle have an
>> area of 360 square units?
>>
>> OTOH, `man 3 sin` on my system documents the sin() function of the C
>> math library _is_ documented as taking radians. On a POSIX system,
>> this is usually what is called by Ruby's Math.sin() method.
>> 
>> Can you just write an additional method like
>> 
>>   def sin_d(deg)
>>     Math.sin(deg * Math::PI / 180)
>>   end
>> 
>> ...and maybe even make it a method of the Math module itself?
> 


This is basically what I am now doing, (although yours is more elegant.)
I didn't realize that python basically called the C math function,
although that makes sense. I didn't think to check that. Thanks.

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-- 
Jim Richardson
	Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, from watches to supercomputers, for grandmas and geeks.