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What is the best (most accepted) way to typeset something like $5$ per (angular, not temperature) degree (in $\LaTeX$)?
I came up with the following options (using ^\circ for the $^\circ$ symbol):

  • $5 \frac{1}{^\circ}$
  • $5/^\circ$ (eventually with a $1$ before the '$/$'.)
  • $5{}^{\circ ^{-1}}$ (my favorite so far)
  • $5{}^\circ{}^{-1}$
  • $5^{/\circ}$ (Thanks to Michael Hardy)

and the code to produce that output:

  • 5 \frac{1}{^\circ}
  • 5/^\circ
  • 5{}^{\circ ^{-1}}
  • 5{}^\circ{}^{-1}
  • 5^{/\circ} (no ^ before \circ)

Note that I'm not asking this on the Latex forum, because the problem is that I don't know what it should look like. After that, formatting shouldn't be a problem.
PS: What is an appropriate tag for this question?

Ragnar
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    Why not “5 per degree”? – MJD Feb 26 '14 at 23:14
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    @MJD: Excessively readable. – André Nicolas Feb 26 '14 at 23:15
  • @MJD, Hadn't really thought of that yet :) However, I like to put the units within the mathematical expression, not outside of it. Also, I might have a list of 'per degree' values in a table, and then that wouldn't be a solution. – Ragnar Feb 26 '14 at 23:16
  • You missed $\displaystyle 5^{/\circ}$. ${}\qquad{}$ – Michael Hardy Feb 26 '14 at 23:19
  • @MichaelHardy, that's like $5^{\frac 12}$ as inverse of $5^2$ (which seems counterintuitive), but does look pretty good. – Ragnar Feb 26 '14 at 23:24
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    The standard SI supplemental unit for angle is the radian; you could write $286.479 \text{ rad}^{-1}$, which would be completely standard and unexceptionable, but which seems to obscure the essence of what you are trying to communicate.. – MJD Feb 26 '14 at 23:25
  • @MJD, I'm writing a report and all our measurements and data processing are done in degrees, so it would be weird to use radians for this purpose only. In fact, we had a remark in our draft that we did use radians once, so I'd like to avoid that. – Ragnar Feb 26 '14 at 23:27
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    @Ragnar : But $5^\circ$ is like $5^3$ as $5\cdot3$. – Michael Hardy Feb 27 '14 at 22:38

2 Answers2

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I have seen $5 \text{ deg}^{-1}$ and like that.

Ross Millikan
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"Per degree" (perhaps better use radians if talking math?) isn't really an unit, it is a dimensionless ratio. So, to be really rigurous, there is no unit. In any case, it is better to use the general ISO guidelines for readability.

vonbrand
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