Angle Measurement
Angles are measured in degrees or radians. A complete circle has 360° or 2π radians. Therefore 360° = 2π radians.
Divide both sides by two and you have
1800 = π radians.
Therefore if we divide both sides by 180 we will find what 1° equals in radians.
1800∕ 180 = π radians ∕ 180 → 10 = π radians ∕ 180 →
10 ≈ 0.01745329 radians.
( The above problem isn't any more difficult than 3t = 12
t would represent the degree symbol 0 3t/3 = 12/3 → 1t = 12/3 → 1t = 4 )
Hence to change 15° to radians multiply both sides by 15 × 10 = 15 × π radians ∕ 180 → π radians ∕ 12
π radians divided by 12 and we get 150 ≈ .2617883878 radians. If we used (10 ≈ 0.01745329 radians) × 15 ≈ .26179935.
We get a slightly different answer.
Due to rounding off the numbers involved in the calculations both answers are approximations.
However π radians ∕ 180 multiplied by 15 is a more accurate answer. Hence we used the latter instead of 0.01745329
What does 160 =
answer
Our next consideration is that each degree equals 60 minutes and each minute equals 60 seconds.
So you can have a degree measurement of 13015' 11"
How do you change 13015' 11" to radian measure?
answer
Using the information that 1800 = π radians can you explain how to change
from radians to degrees? Hint 5 radians ≈ 286.478898o
answer
What are: acute angles, obtuse angles, complementary angles, supplementary angles, straight angles
and right angles?
answer
return
return to PCTC