re: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory Sunday, March 10, 2002 at 2:50 pm Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum Posted by bill 2 (115 messages posted) The units are grads and 400 grads= 360 degrees. On Sunday, March 10, 2002 at 12:56 pm, Sundar Narayan wrote: >The Calculator can be found under Programs/Accessories. It lets you calculate, among >other things, trigonometric functions of angles. When you choose the menu item "View" >and "Scientific", it allows you to input the angle in degrees, radians and "gradients". > Actually, there is no such unit called "gradients" for measuring angles. Microsoft >undoubtedly means "grades", which is a rarely-used unit for measuring angles -- proof >of this can be easily obtained by typing in "100", choosing "gradients" (sic) and >pressing "sin"; the Calculator gives the answer as 1, which is correct since sin(100 >grades) = sin(90 degrees) = 1. A circle can be divided into 360 degrees or 400 grades >(not gradients!). I once read that the French liking the metric system wanted angular >measures to be also metric. Therefore, they came up with grades - a right angle >equals 100 grades, 100 being a nice "metric" number, unlike 90 degrees. > >Evidently, the Microsoft employee who wrote the code for the Calculator did not know >much about the history of mathematics. Anyway, he must be dead and his position >never filled - the Calculator has remained the same since Windows 3.1. Written in response to: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (Sundar Narayan: Sunday, March 10, 2002 at 12:56 pm) There are presently no replies to this message. All messages in this thread [show all] Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (Sundar Narayan: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 12:56 pm) re: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (Mrs. Bagley: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 1:29 pm) Mrs. Bagley (John D.: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 2:17 pm) re: Mrs. Bagley (Paul D: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 4:07 pm) re: Paul (Mrs. Bagley: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 6:55 pm) re: Mrs. Bagley (Mrs. Bagley: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 6:38 pm) re: Mrs. Bagley (Paul D: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 1:54 am) re: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (Michael: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 6:00 am) Paul (Mrs. Bagley: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 6:30 am) re: Paul (Colin: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 8:49 am) Damn, a Typo!! (Colin: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 9:00 am) re: Damn, a Typo!! (Michael: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 11:03 am) re: Paul A+ (Mrs. Bagley: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 8:43 pm) re: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (bill 2: Sun, Mar 10, 2002, 2:50 pm) re: Malapropism in Windows Calculator Accessory (Michael: Mon, Mar 11, 2002, 5:54 am) Reply or follow-up to this message Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum