Turns are better than radians

Post by ngc248 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 11:48 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #202

js2 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 50 yo programmer. I have a CS degree. I don't even remember my college calculus much less my high school trig. I just haven't had cause to use it in my career, not as a sysadmin, not as a programmer. My son is taking calc 3 and I knew I happened to have my calc 3 notes from the mid-90s, so I pulled them out of the filing cabinet and my very carefully taken notes, my proofs, my hand drawn graphs, it was all gibb…

By far the most annoying myth I face when trying to discuss the pros and cons of various education techniques is the pervasive idea that everybody is a magical knowledge sponge and will go to their grave still remembering how to integrate by parts and every detail about some particular battle they covered in seventh grade, and therefore, if we slightly tweak a curriculum plan to drop something that was included on th…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 5:35 AM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #112

Indeed, maths never "decreed that sine and cosine have to take radian arguments". But thinking that makes any sort of point is a fundamental misunderstanding of maths. There are infinitely many sinusoidal functions out there. You can just adjust amplitude, frequency and phase to your heart's content. Trigonometry basically requires that sine and cosine have specific amplitudes and phases, but gives not one shit about…