(eli5) whats the difference in radians and degrees (pls give real life examples)
In: 1
If you cut a circle into 360 equal pieces down the middle. 1 degree would be the angle of one of those pieces.
We decided to cut circles into 360 pieces for cultural and historical reasons, not anything particularly mathematical.
If you drew a line on the edge that was the same distance as the the edge is from the center of the circle (the radius). Then drew two lines from the ends to the center. The angle from the middle would be 1 radian.
Notice how we defined everything in that without pulling a number out of nowhere?
That’s the sort of thing mathematicians really like.
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