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Re: Radians, dimensions, & explanations



I wrote:

... because of the radian's unique status, we can always insert the
radian or any power of the radian into the units of *any* quantity and
that, similarly, we can remove it from the units of *any* quantity with
no effect whatsoever on the value of the quantity,

To which Joel responded,

This is not unique to the *radian*, but would be true of any dimensionless
unit; would it not?

Joel,

It certainly isn't true for degrees, arcminutes, arcseconds, cycles,
grads, or any other angular unit except the radian, but maybe I just don't
understand what you mean when you refer to a dimensionless unit. While I
wouldn't be surprised to find other units for which this is true, I don't
think I know of any. Can you give an example?

John
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A. John Mallinckrodt http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm
Professor of Physics mailto:ajm@csupomona.edu
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