degrees and radians.

[Jim Richardson]

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On Sat, 04 May 2002 19:30:58 -0600,
 Fernando Pérez <fperez528 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Tim Hammerquist wrote:
> 
>> My only intent in mentioning POSIX was that on most *nix systems (esp.
>> POSIX ones), you can #include<math.h> and compile and expect to call
>> a sin() function (that, btw, takes its argument in radians). Other
>> PC-oriented operating systems lack a standard math lib "out-of-the-box".
>> 
> 
> BTW, this isn't really a unix-or-not issue, it's simply that mathematically, 
> the 'natural' form of all trig functions (their power series expansion) 
> requires their arguments to be expressed in radians: the period of sin(x) is 
> simply 2*pi, 6.1428..., whatever you want to call it. It's _not_ 360: 
> 
> sin(0) == 0 ; sin(360) ~ 0.96.
> 
> Scientific calculators simply have a 'deg' mode which on the fly converts back 
> and forth between degree input and radians for internal work, but that's 
> simply a user convenience (because degrees are more conveninent for some 
> 'everyday' use as angular measurement units).
> 
> Just a little detail.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> f.



I guess this whole furor shows how long it's been for me since I took
math at high school level :) 

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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.