The ° (Degree Symbol) Command

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Command Summary

If the calculator is in radian mode, the ° (degree) symbol converts an angle to radians.

Command Syntax

angle°

Menu Location

Press:

1. [2nd]
2. [Angle]
3. [Enter] or [1]

Calculator Compatibility

TI-83/84/+/SE

Token Size

1 byte

Normally, when the calculator is in radian mode, the trigonometric functions only return values calculated in radians. With the ° symbol you can have the angle evaluated as if in degree mode because it converts the angle into radians.

You can insert the degree symbol by pressing [2ND] [ANGLE] [ENTER].

One full rotation around a circle is 2π radians, which is equal to 360°. To convert an angle in radians to degrees you multiply by 180/π, and to convert from degrees to radians multiply by π/180.

In radian mode:

sin(45)        \\ actually calculating sin(2578.31)
    .8509035245
sin(45°)
    .7071067812

In degree mode:

sin(45)
    .7071067812
sin(45°)
    .7071067812    \\ There's no difference when in degrees

Converting Degrees, Minutes & Seconds

The degree symbol also allows you to convert degrees, minutes and seconds into decimal degrees. For example:

90°30'
       90.5
90°30'09"
       90.5025

The minute symbol is inserted by pressing [2ND] [ANGLE] [2]. The seconds symbol is inserted via [ALPHA] [+].

To convert back the other way (decimal to degrees-minutes-seconds) use the ►DMS command, accessed via [2ND] [ANGLE] [4]:

90.5025►DMS
       90°30'09"

Optimization

When you only call the trig function once in a program and want it calculated in degrees, instead of changing the mode you can just use ° to save one-byte (the newline from using the command Degree)

:Degree
:sin(X)
can be
:sin(X°)

Related Commands

• ^r (radian symbol)
• ►DMS

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