Why do both radians and degrees work the same in trigonometric functions?

Why can I put a number in radians and a number in degrees in to sine and get the same answer? How does it know that one is degrees and one is radians? Surely pi degrees is different to pi radians?

Reply 1

mqb2766

Put them where? Whereever it is, I presume there is some basic parser that would switch to radians if the angle is a mulitple of pi, but I could be wrong.

Reply 2

archie.smith23

Original post by Hopefuluser

Why can I put a number in radians and a number in degrees in to sine and get the same answer? How does it know that one is degrees and one is radians? Surely pi degrees is different to pi radians?

erm normally if you're using your calculator there are settings for answers (either radians or degrees). perhaps you found a number where they give the same output (2pi radians = 360 degrees)

Reply 3

UtterlyUseless69

Original post by Hopefuluser

Why can I put a number in radians and a number in degrees in to sine and get the same answer? How does it know that one is degrees and one is radians? Surely pi degrees is different to pi radians?

You can’t - sin(π) and sin(π°) are not the same.

Using a calculator:

Radians: sin(π) = 0
Degrees: sin(π°) = 0.05480367…

Check your calculator settings as you might not have the angle units set correctly.