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However, when it is inconvenient to use base-60 for minutes and seconds, positions are frequently expressed as decimal fractional degrees to an equal amount of precision. Degrees given to three decimal places ( 1 / 1000 of a degree) have about 1 / 4 the precision of degrees-minutes-seconds ( 1 / 3600 of a degree) and ...
[18] [19] Today, the degree, 1 / 360 of a turn, or the mathematically more convenient radian, 1 / 2 π of a turn (used in the SI system of units) is generally used instead. In the 1970s – 1990s, most scientific calculators offered the gon (gradian), as well as radians and degrees, for their trigonometric functions . [ 23 ]
A degree (in full, a degree of arc, arc degree, or arcdegree), usually denoted by ° (the degree symbol), is a measurement of a plane angle in which one full rotation is 360 degrees. [ 4 ] It is not an SI unit —the SI unit of angular measure is the radian —but it is mentioned in the SI brochure as an accepted unit . [ 5 ]
60 arc-minutes (′) in one degree; 60 arc-seconds (″) in one arc-minute; To put this in perspective, the full Moon as viewed from Earth is about 1 ⁄ 2 °, or 30 ′ (or 1800″). The Moon's motion across the sky can be measured in angular size: approximately 15° every hour, or 15″ per second.
This means that the SI steradian is the number of square radians in a solid angle equal to one square radian, which of course is the number one. It is useful to distinguish between dimensionless quantities of a different kind , such as the radian (in the SI, a ratio of quantities of dimension length), so the symbol sr is used.
The milliradian (approximately 6,283.185 in a circle) was first used in the mid-19th century by Charles-Marc Dapples (1837–1920), a Swiss engineer and professor at the University of Lausanne. [2] Degrees and minutes were the usual units of angular measurement but others were being proposed, with "grads" (400 gradians in a circle) under ...
{{Deg2DMS |positive decimal degrees| p =precision| sup =ms}} |p= is optional and defaults to 3. It is the number of decimal digits that the seconds are rounded to. |sup= is optional and changes the default apostrophe-format for arcminutes and arcseconds (1° 2′ 3″) to the m-s-format for arcminutes and arcseconds (1° 2 m 3 s).
[2] [3] [4] The factor–label method is the sequential application of conversion factors expressed as fractions and arranged so that any dimensional unit appearing in both the numerator and denominator of any of the fractions can be cancelled out until only the desired set of dimensional units is obtained.