Recently I've been trying to write some simple SeExpr scripts and that meant dealing with geometry, something I'm not very good at. While I was trying to figure out how to calculate things with hexagons, I kept seeing code that used the square root of random numbers. In programming we'd call these unexplained numbers "magic numbers," and while I could easily port the code to SeExpr, I wanted to know where the numbers came from.
It turns out that sqrt(3)/2 is just another way to write sin(60). In other words, the sine of 60 degrees equals the square root of 3 divided by 2. In some cases I've seen written as just the final number, "0.86602540378." I've also seen the tangent of 30 degrees written as just "0.57735."
So if you see sqrt(3)/2 written somewhere, it's very likely that just means sin(60).