4 ms·
I agree that this makes sense for the kind of situations that the article talks about. If you only need to express common angles like 90 degrees, 45 and so on,
by nurbl 4y ago
I agree that this makes sense for the kind of situations that the article talks about. If you only need to express common angles like 90 degrees, 45 and so on, radians are just messy (though in physics, you get used to it).
But in other cases, radians are useful. For example consider the case of small deviations from a direction. If you give it in radians, let's say three mrad (milliradians), it's very easy to estimate how large the error will be over the course of a meter; three mm.
This is just to say: choose the right unit for the job.
- jefftk 4y agoTo elaborate a bit: that works because sin(x) is very close to x for small x, but only when x is measured in radians.
- shadowgovt 4y agoThat's because of the equality relationship between 2π radians and the length of the unit circle perimeter. If one is working with a sine taking in turns, one can just adjust by saying sin(q) ≈ 2π * q for small q.
- sacrosancty 4y agoalso known as the fundamental theorem of engineering. Works great for small deformations of stiff materials like steel and concrete.