3 ms·
I got through calc in high school and college and I really wish somebody had told me that radians were based on the radius like this. I had no idea. Maybe some
by javert 13y ago
I got through calc in high school and college and I really wish somebody had told me that radians were based on the radius like this. I had no idea.
Maybe somebody told me and I didn't take it in.
Shoddy math teaching was par for the course where I grew up.
- robryan 13y agoYeah, you could easily get though by knowing the method of calculation without ever having understood a model of what they actually are.
- judk 13y agoIt wasn't a guarded secret... "Radian" is almost the same word as "radius", and 2pi * radius = circumference = 2pi radians.
- Jtsummers 13y agoBut unless you take a moment to think about it, that connection isn't so obvious. And in HS, unless math is your interest (and even if it is) there are hundreds of other things running through your brain that are probably more interesting than pondering the relation between the words "radian" and "radius". There are also many other words that people use frequently that they don't realize are connected until much later. And as others have said, HS math (in the US) often presents them as: radians = degrees * pi/180. The calculation has zero relation to the radius of the circle, as presented.