The Science That Draws Necessary Conclusions

Before I write about trigonometry, I would like to explain the measurement of angles. More people would think of a circle as having than . The measurements are in degrees and radians respectively. Most people should already have a good understanding of degrees. Fortunately, understanding radian measurement is also easy.

A circle is made up of 360 degrees. A after a number means the the number is in degrees . While decimals are most often used, minutes and seconds can be used to represent an angle. A minute is of a degree and a second is of a minute ( of a degree). Minutes and seconds are denoted by ‘ and ” respectively. For example, 27′ 36″.

More advanced math almost always uses radians. It is likely that you will eventually prefer to use radian measurement.

Travel along the circumference of a circle the distance of its radius. The angle formed is equal to one radian. It is equal to about . Radians are often measured in terms of . In this form, one radian is . Conversely, it can be written as or .

To convert degrees to radians, multiply the number by . To convert radians to degrees, multiply the number by . That is it for now. Sine and cosine will probably be the topic of the next post.