Talk:Grad (angle)

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[edit] Addition

Is it so much easier to add or subtract 100 than 90? This shouldn't be listed as a pro of the gon unit.

yes its MUCH easier to just change the most significant digit rather than mess arround with carries or subtraction tricks. Plugwash 19:14, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I think most of us would find it much easier. Notable exceptions, of course, would be the ancient Babylonians. Jimp 05:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gradient

Curiously, MicroSoft did call it "gradient" for a while on its calculator that comes with Windows; my XP version has "Grads". Gene Nygaard 14:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I've moved this from Gon to Grad. I've never heard it called the "gon" before (and I'm a measurements buff), the refernces given by the article imply that gon is a Scandianvian and possibly German word, dictionary.com does not find gon as a unit of measure. Rich Farmbrough 23:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like ISO standard symbol is "gon" but it's in an annex of a document I don't have....

I very much prefer to go back to gon, the official international standard name for this unit. Markus Kuhn 12:43, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
The French IGN maps still use the term "grade" for the unit of latitude and longitude (at least in their English language documentation). See [1].

[edit] grad

Trigonometry doesn't work nearly as well with grads or gons or whatever you want to call them. The sine of 30 degrees (or pi over 6)is a lot easier to deal with than 33.33333333333333333333 etc. grads - to get the even .5

[edit] Centigrade /Celsius

The article as currently posted seems contradictory. The confusion between centigrade (temperature) and centigrade (angle) was the reason for the <rejection> of centigrade (temperature), and the adoption of Celsius for temperature... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.96.86.4 (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Likely motivation for the grad:

Note that French artillery still uses this angle measure, likely because of its connection to the original definition of the meter: 1m = 1/10 000 000 the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. Thus, one grad of latitude is very close to 100 km. (Errors due to the original Meter Expedition.) The nautical mile is defined similarly, but in degrees and minutes. One minute of latitude equals one nautical mile.