Thanks, Gene, for your opportune intervention here. Just a very minor observation, if you can bear with me please.
On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 12:33:07 Gene Mechtly wrote: >On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Carl Sorenson wrote: ... >> Clearly, the radian is not very practical for many uses, ... > >False. Practicality is a matter of education and habit. The radian can >be scaled by prefixes just as any other SI unit can be scaled; for example >milliradian (mrad). Gene, I guess what our friends meant here is the fact that dealing with the likes of pi/4, pi/6, 2pi and the likes is very cumbersome and a nuisance for practical purposes. Besides, just imagine how one would build measuring instruments based on such unsightly "scale", where the unit, 1 radian, has absolutely no practical meaning whatsoever (except, of course, to mathematicians...). One must remember that "Joe Six Pack" would never relate (familiar/habit) to these... "numbers". We do require something more... decimal. The ninety degree crap, I must confess, does have certain advantages, like the handling of 1/3 of 1/4 of a circle not being an infinite series, etc. However, I'd, personally, much rather live with this small nuisance then to expect wide acceptance of the public towards the radian construct.... Marcus Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com
