Question

I’m having a problem with Math.atan returning the same value as the input.

public double inchToMOA( double in, double range){
        double rangeIn = 36*range;
        double atan = (in / rangeIn) * -1.0;
        double deg = Math.atan(atan);
        double moa = deg * 60;
        return moa;
    }

I had this all in one line, but I broke it down into different variables to see if I could find out why it wasn’t working. if in = -10 and range = 300, then atan is about -.00094. The angle should be about -.053 degrees, but math.atan is returning -.00094, the same as the input.

Is my number too small for math.atan?

Answer 1

Inverse tangent is described here:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/InverseTangent.html

I don’t think your argument is the problem here.

You realize, of course, that computer trig functions deal in radians rather than degrees, right?