3 ms·
See also gradian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian "one grad of arc along the Earth's surface corresponded to 100 ki
by perilunar 9y ago
See also gradian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian
"one grad of arc along the Earth's surface corresponded to 100 kilometers of distance at the equator; 1 centigrad of arc equaled 1 kilometer."
i.e. both nautical miles and kilometres are derived from the size of the Earth. Plain old statute miles are just a mess, and best avoided.
- ColinWright 9y agoYup, so that will be the best thing once everyone switches to using grads for latitude and longitude.
- logfromblammo 9y agoNo! Radians is the SI unit. I would possibly also accept fractions of a whole rotation. The arbitrary factor of 400 (or 360), is simply not helpful for machine calculations.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago400 is pretty great though. a straight angle is 100 gradians, and a bunch of things get simplified. 30 and 60 degrees get worse though
- logfromblammo 9y agoWhat can I do to convince you that including an additional (2 PI)/N or N/(2 PI) factor into every single angle calculation you will ever do is a complete waste of time? At the very least, you could take out the arbitrary N. 100 gradians is 0.25 rotations, or PI/2 radians. 30 degrees is 1/12 rotations, or PI/6 radians. There is no advantage whatsoever in multiplying everything by an arbitrary scaling factor that is not based on PI (or TAU).