Date: Jul 20, 2006 1:07 PM
Author: James Propp
Subject: [HM] radians in 1815?


It occurs to me that the issue of angle-measure in
navigation is not as relevant as the issue of angle-
measure in astronomy, since Aubrey is speaking here
not as a professional sailor but as an amateur
astronomer with a passion for double stars.  But
I suspect that astronomers like the Herschels would
not have used radians any more than seafarers did.

(Then again, precise trig of the sort required for
finding planets might lead one to use Taylor
expansions, which might lead one to do one's
calculations in radians whether or not one had a
name for them.)

Jim Propp