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In physics, a characteristic length is an important dimension that defines the scale of a physical system. Often, such a length is used as an input to a formula in order to predict some characteristics of the system, and it is usually required by the construction of a dimensionless quantity, in the general framework of dimensional analysis and in particular applications such as fluid mechanics.
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. The length of a line segment connecting two points on the circle and passing through the centre is called the diameter.
In geometry, the circumference (from Latin circumferens, meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. [1] More generally, the perimeter is the curve length around any closed figure.
A page from Archimedes' Measurement of a Circle. Measurement of a Circle or Dimension of the Circle (Greek: Κύκλου μέτρησις, Kuklou metrēsis) [1] is a treatise that consists of three propositions, probably made by Archimedes, ca. 250 BCE. [2] [3] The treatise is only a fraction of what was a longer work. [4] [5]
Ptolemy used a circle of diameter 120, and gave chord lengths accurate to two sexagesimal (base sixty) digits after the integer part. [2] The chord function is defined geometrically as shown in the picture. The chord of an angle is the length of the chord between two points on a unit circle separated by that central angle.
Perimeter is the distance around a two dimensional shape, a measurement of the distance around something; the length of the boundary. A perimeter is a closed path that encompasses, surrounds, or outlines either a two dimensional shape or a one-dimensional length. The perimeter of a circle or an ellipse is called its circumference.
Because PQ has length y 1, OQ length x 1, and OP has length 1 as a radius on the unit circle, sin(t) = y 1 and cos(t) = x 1. Having established these equivalences, take another radius OR from the origin to a point R(−x 1,y 1) on the circle such that the same angle t is formed with the negative arm of the x-axis.
Arc distances on a great circle are the same as the distance between the same points on a sphere, and on the hemispheres into which the circle divides the sphere.. The Riemannian unit circle of length 2 π can be embedded, without any change of distance, into the metric of geodesics on a unit sphere, by mapping the circle to a great circle and its metric to great-circle distance.