Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
From: robert j. kolker (nowhere_at_nowhere.net)
Date: 02/28/05
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Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:25:20 -0500
Albert wrote:
> Did you just make this up? Or is there an official 'Style Guide' that
> specifies this?
Nope. It is standard usage to drop "radian" from the text when angles
are the subject. The radian is the only natural (i.e. intrinsic) measure
of a planar angle. On the sphere the steradian is used as the natural
solid angle measure. The total roundabout solid angle is 4*pi steradians.
Degrees and grads are arbitrary units and are not derived from the
nature of the geometric figure at all. We use degrees because Babylonian
astrologers had a thing about the the numbers 60 and 360. Aside from the
familiarity we have with the degree system there is really very little
to recommend it.
Bob Kolker
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