October 2006
Intermediate to advanced
888 pages
16h 55m
English
When it comes to measuring arc, the mathematical or “natural” unit is the radian, defined in such a way that an angle of one radian corresponds to an arclength equal to the radius of the circle. A little thought will show that there are 2π radians in a circle.
The degree of arc, which we use in everyday life is a holdover from ancient Babylonian base-60 units; this system divides the circle into 360 degrees. The less-familiar grad is a pseudometric unit defined in such a way that there are 100 grads in a right angle (or 400 in a circle).
Programming languages often default to the radian when calculating trigonometric functions, and Ruby is no exception. But we show here how to do these calculations ...
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