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From: Reynolds%RAND-UNIX@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: A universal system of units
Message-ID: <15432@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jan-84 18:50:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15432
Posted: Thu Jan 12 18:50:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jan-84 01:36:03 EST
Lines: 13

There have been some messages lately about the possibility for non-arb-
itrary units of measure.  For time and distance this is a hard problem,
but I was suprised when some one mentioned that you have the same dif-
ficulty with angle measures.  (This came up during discussion of parsecs
-> seconds of arc -> degrees -> radians -> ...)  Well 360 is a pretty
random number, but the idea of "a number a little bigger than 6 and a
quarter" is ridiculous!  The obvious value is 1, the name of this unit
is "revolutions", one degree = 1/360 of a revolution.  That unit is
both completely non-arbitrary (no funny constants) and universal (makes
sense no matter how many fingers (or whatever) you have).  This approach
is very useful in computational geometry, and is used by several
computer graphics / computer geometry systems (including my favorite:
ASAS).