The Rotating Wheel

Trigonometry · Axiom Academy

Watch a bicycle wheel spin and discover how rotation creates angles. Explore the connection between movement and measurement. Imagine a bicycle wheel. As it rotates, the spoke traces out an angle. Use the slider to rotate the wheel and watch what happens! Degrees are one way to measure rotation. A full rotation of the wheel is exactly 360 degrees . Try these common angles! A Natural Way to Measure: Radians There's another way to measure angles that connects directly to the wheel's circumference. Let's explore radians! Since the circumference is , a full rotation is radians! Watch both measurements update as you rotate the wheel. They measure the same thing—just with different units!

This is the written version of the interactive lesson above. See the full Trigonometry course.