[[MM]IKKE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mauzen When beginning with trigonometry in school people almost always use degrees. Radians are barely used in school, even in later years. Also, arctan in calculators often offers trigonometric functions for radians and degrees. And thats what he did, arctan 36 in degrees is 88.4. Though I doubt that 36 should be a tangens value, but rather a given angle of the triangle (he also wrote 36°), as i wrote before. A tangens of 36 would be a rather uncommon triangle that rather looks like a line, and teachers stick to common forms to get people used to trigonometry. a 36°/90°/54° triangle would rather be a common form, than a 88.4°/90°/1.6° one.

Degrees are easier to read & understand, but in the end, radians are a lot more useful when applying them to other parts of maths. We also mainly used them in highschool. By the way, made a mistake in my previous post, 36° equals pi/5, not the solution of the problem.

The weird triangle you described & the fact he equalled his tangent to a degree - I've honestly NEVER seen that before - made me ask him about the exact question Also, if the tangent is given in the question, then why would the solution be like you replied (just counting the angles all together)? Your answer isn't illogical, but then the question would be odd.

So let's wait for OP!