Hmm... Do I sense some... confusion here? One side is saying it's the tangent, the other it's the sine. Which one is which???
I don't know, but I sense that sine may make more sense at least for roads anyways because one can measure the distance of a road that is climbing (the hypotenuse) and then find out how much one "climbed" (height) in doing so. Therefore, that climb over the measured distance traveled would provide a value that can interpreted as % (dimensionally, the unit 1: distance/distance). But if I read opinions here right it seems (again...) that Europe would use sine whereas America would use tangent? Is this a fair interpretation? Marcus On Fri, 7 Feb 2003 18:02:55 Terry Simpson wrote: >Ma Be wrote: >>say an angle in the first quadrant has the horizontal distance >>of 1 meter and the height was say 5 cm, would this carachterize >>a 5% gradient angle? > >For UK roads the answer is no. > >It is distance travelled (hypotenuse rather than horizontal) and vertical >rise. I am sure the same applies throughout Europe. > >The old method was to write: '1 in 5', but now it is written '20%' for the >same gradient. > > >Less than 14% (or perhaps 11%) is not marked. >The steepest road averages 33%. > > > > >You can see references to the old and the current method at these two >official pages: > >www.highwaycode.gov.uk/signs05.shtml > >www.ordsvy.gov.uk/understanding_mapping/index.htm >(look at the 'Map symbol' section and click on either 'Landranger' or >'Explorer') > > >-- >Terry Simpson >Human Factors Consultant >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >www.connected-systems.com >Phone: +44 7850 511794 > > > > ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
