Metric?

[Captain Pegg]

On 13 June 2017 at 09:37, mayalld said:

The SI unit of angle is the Radian

If GPS was Metric, it would use Radians

I forgot about the radian. Probably because I don't think I have used it outside of a classroom.

I wonder if practicality is the reason it isn't used and that perhaps gives us a clue as to the whole metric vs imperial debate.

But would the use of radians actually be metric; or just in accordance with SI units? Is it the same thing?

Jon

ETA - actually I do know a scenario that uses radians as a measure of angle in my work. The scale of the radian is such that the angle is expressed in millirads.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Captain Pegg

[Machpoint005]

No reason why you can't use radians, but there are 2 pi of them in a full circle (which makes them irrational). 

I imagine the radian is an SI derived unit because its dimensions are [L]/[L] (metres divided by metres).

The CGS system is metric but is not SI. The MKS system is also metric. It's very close to SI but is not exactly the same.

Trig functions in Excel use radians by default.