What’s up with all this “turn 180 degrees”? Do a “360 uni spin?”
I say, down with degrees, up with Radians!!
From now on, you just did a pi spin, or that pirhouette was really spinning two-pi on the spot.
what do you think about that? (those who know the difference between degrees and radians.)
That’s awesome. I like pi. If everyone got in the habit of speaking that way, it would be great. Super Idea!
Pi… how about we just say alpha, beta, gamma, or delta…
We can all join a seroraty!!!
PI | PHI | UNI
Yeah
Personally I’m for grads. “Hey, that was a 67 grad spin!”
DEAR GOD NO!!!
I’m here just looking up unicycling articles, and what do i see? Topics I learn at school! I hate my calculus class, due mainly in part to my teacher. I don’t need any reminders of her here!
How about we start calling unicycles “unikes” or “uikes” or “yikes”. Why shouldn’t we call them that? “bike” is an abbreviation for bicycle, so logically “unike” should be an abbreviation for unicycle. That may be accidentally pronounced u-ni-kee like the shoe, so maybe “uike” or simpler to pronounce “yike”.
Unike? I would pronounce that more like… unique! How a appropriate.
Daniel
Re: New lingo/jargon suggestion
no i dont
can u explain?
as for the suggested ‘new’ lingo, i’ll fall back on my normal position that unless it develops naturally, it doesn’t quite count
suggesting ‘new’ slang is roughly on par with giving yourself a nickname
Okay, from what I remember from last year…
If you take two radii of a circle and join the ends that touch the outside of the circle with another line of the same length, then the angle between the first two radii is 1 radian which is equal to about 57.3 degrees or something like that (180/pi). pi = 360 degrees.
That’s all I can remember…sorry about the horrible sketch!
Andrew
Re: New lingo/jargon suggestion
How mathematical do we want to get! (on a scale from 0 to 2*PI)
I have enough trouble with people who don’t know about degrees (turning their lives around 360 deg. etc.)
Completely OT, sorry
My head hurts. If anyone has done any programming in GLUT (the OpenGL Utility Toolkit), GLUT uses degrees while the normal C maths libraries use radians. Aaargh… confusion ensues…
Phil
Hey Andrew the cranks on that uni diagram are tooo long, and what’s with the third crank joining the other two? Aren’t you afraid they will hit the ground?
Oh, and Phil - I bet I know who programs in GLUT! whistles into the air
Andrew-
Please don’t misremember in print. The angles of an equilateral triangle, like the one shown in your sketch, are all equal to 60 degrees. Pi is equivalent to 180 degrees, not 360 degrees. The circumference of a circle subtends an angle of 2Pi radians, or about 6.28 radians. One radian is 360degrees/(2Pi) or about 57.3 degrees. In the northern hemisphere anyway.
I don’t want to sound like Mr. “Old School” here, but when I speak (or write), it’s with the intention of people understanding. When I succeed in this, I’m temporarily not a nerd. One possible definition for nerd is intentionally communicating in ways you should realize the people around you won’t understand.
If somebody doesn’t know how much 180 degrees is, that’s their fault. If I say radians, it’s my fault for assuming they are engineers or mathemeticians (especially if I know they’re not).
If you want to abbreviate “unicycle,” I recommend “uni.” Don’t abbreviate if you’re talking with people who don’t already know what you’re talking about. That’s why my event T-shirts always say “California Mountain Unicycle Weekend,” not “MUni Weekend.” MUni Weekend will not start a conversation or interest a person who doesn’t know what it means. I’m all about spreading unicycling.
Re: Re: New lingo/jargon suggestion
So, Dave, does that mean you’re going to start spelling “cool” and “you” properly?
A 180 degrees is equal to Pi radians. Therefore, 3Pi/2 is 270 degrees, Pi/2 is 90 degrees, Pi/4 is 45 degrees, Pi/6 is 30 degrees, etc …
Because of this, one radian is equal to 57.295579513 degrees, or 180/Pi.
The only use for radians is for calculus formulas, which only work with radians, not degrees. So we should just stick to degrees for unicycling.
There are you happy? WORLDS ARE COLLIDING!
Greg,
I Suck!!! 
Okay, I’ll try again…Does that 3rd radius thingy that I drew as a chord go along the outside of the circle? That sounds better to me. Sorry…
Andrew
I’m sure the original idea was something of a joke, but maybe not. Certainly at first glance you might think that pi is something simple, almost non-numeric. However I guess someone a long time ago invented the degree. What were their reasons? Their reasons were probaby to simplify. It is convenient and nice that 360 is evenly divided by so many numbers: 2,3,4,5,6,9,10,12,15,20… People understand whole numbers, whereas fractions and decimal numbers are more confusing. pi is maybe easy but pi/2 or 1.57… rad, not.
Other systems divide the circle into 400 parts. The clock uses 60 divisions, although some use 100. Maps use degrees, minutes and seconds to divide things. A typical pie is usually divided into 8 pieces.
Still there are a class of problems which are simplifed by using radians, however uni spin isn’t one of them, although I am speaking with a complete lack of experience.
Gimme a pi/4 rad. of pie, please
Yes. The arc length, r, is traced when an angle of one radian is subtended on a circle of radius r.
You don’t suck. You’re an incredible rider.
Yah, but could you imagine the conversation at a uni meet starting off something like this:
Hey, did you see that rad 3 pie spin.
Yah, and that suicide pie mount was amazing too.