Turns Are Better Than Radians: Why Your Code Multiplies by Pi for No Reason

Turns Are Better Than Radians: Why Your Code Multiplies by Pi for No Reason

A common pattern in code is multiplying by tau or pi to convert to radians for trig calls, only for the library to divide it back out internally. This wastes cycles and loses precision. The author argues for using turns (full circle = 1) instead, which simplifies code, improves accuracy for common angles, and is already supported by some libraries like CUDA's sincospi. Switching is often just deleting code.

It’s literally a conversion to radians and back for no reason.

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2026-08-20