Yes, you read that title right! I've been doing various happiness molecules post (if you're new, here is one of my first posts about the topic), tying in emotions with science. With this post, I'll be paying homage to mathematics by introducing angles of depression. You don't really need to know much trigonometry, but it might be helpful if you do, not going to lie.
Okay, so angle of depression is shown in the picture below, of the man looking down at the object that is not mysteriously floating (the real question should be, why is he ignoring the floating box?)
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Credit
I'm not sure why the clipart still holds its background and doesn't blend in...but oh well. |
You can learn all types of trig online, but I bet you didn't know that the angle of depression can also measure how happy you are! It's true! Basically, the greater the angle of depression, the more depressed you are. The "object" is really the world. A large angle of depression means you see the world as a place to be depressed. When you get happier and happier, the world in your eyes seems to move higher and higher, until your angle of depression turns into an angle of elevation.
Typically, the angle of depression is measured in a 90 degree interval in the 4th quadrant of a graph (picture the man as the origin, or the center of the graph, and his line of view as the x-axis). To follow a trig and avoid confusion, the angle ranges from 0 degrees (right at the x-axis, where you're indifferent and only feel that way once a day, right when you wake up) to -90 degrees (when x=0, right on the y-axis, which most do not feel unless they are clinically depressed).
Why is this useful, you ask? Well, it has many uses:
- It can help diagnose patients with depression. Anyone who has an angle of depression below -75 degrees is moving towards being clinically depressed. The average human only has an angle of depression until -45 degrees to their angle of elevations.
- It is a fun topic to blog about. That one's a bit self-explanatory.
Okay, now before I head off, let's do one example!
Rebecca has had a rough Monday. She woke up feeling excited to present her project that day in her science class, with her angle of elevation being 45 degrees. Then, she realized that she had run out of toothpaste and cereal, and was late to school while searching for replacements. She became sad by 30 degrees. Then, she realized she forgot to bring her flash drive to class, and was even sadder by 45 degrees when she couldn't present the project that took her 6 hours to work on! Her friends did give her milk tea to cheer her up, which caused her to be happy by 6.5 degrees. What is her angle of depression by the end of the day?
We can calculate the angle to be 45-30-45+6.5= -23.5 degrees. She is pretty sad. Perhaps more boba tea would cheer her up. And toothpaste.
Anyways, I hope you're not depressed after reading this post! In fact, your angle of elevation should have gone up, right? ;)
Thanks for reading! I'll be back with more posts soon!
