Just to elaborate on Michael Hardy's answer a little bit...
Suppose we have a rational function written like $f(x)=\frac{p(x)}{q(x)}$. Performing the long division $p(x)\div q(x)$ gives you a different way of writing the same function, $$f(x)=a(x)+\frac{r(x)}{q(x)},$$ as a polynomial plus a rational function whose numerator's degree is smaller than its denominator's degree. (To be more specific, $a(x)$ has degree equal to the degree of the original numerator $p(x)$ minus the degree of the denominator $q(x)$. The degree of $r(x)$ is smaller than that of $q(x)$ because $r(x)$ is the remainder of the long division.)
As you already understand, $\frac{r(x)}{q(x)}$ tends to zero as $x$ tends to infinity, because the degree of the numerator is smaller than the degree of its denominator. That means that as $x\rightarrow\infty$, the function $f(x)$ tends towards the polynomial $a(x)$.
If $p(x)$ has degree exactly one more than that of $q(x)$, then $a(x)$ has degree one: it's a line. We call this line a slant or oblique asymptote of $f(x)$. If the degree of $p(x)$ is more than one higher than that of $q(x)$, then $a(x)$ is a quadratic, or a cubic, or whatever, but it's not a line. So $f(x)$ doesn't have a slant asymptote in this direction. (We still might say something like $f(x)$ asymptotically approaches a(x).)
Hopefully this explains why asymptotes only occur when the degree of the numerator is exactly one more than that of the denominator. It also might give you a hint for how you can find slant asymptotes of functions that aren't rational: if you can rewrite your function as a line plus something that goes to zero, you've got yourself an asymptote!
Why is it that when we convert radians to degrees we multiply radians $\times \frac{180}π$ , but when we convert slope per radians to slope per degrees we have to multiply the inverse conversion formula slope per radians $\times \frac{π}{180}$
If we want to know an hour in terms of minutes, we multiply 1 hour $\times \frac{60}{1}$, given the result in minutes. If we want to know how convert 180 minutes, we divide $180$ minutes by $60$, i.e., multiply $180 \times \frac 1{60}$.
You'll find this phenomenon in any conversion: To convert temperature in degrees Celsius to temp in Fahrenheit, we have $F = \frac 95 C + 32$. To convert to from F to C, we need to invert this: $C = \frac 59(F-32)$
$R \text{ radians}\;\times \dfrac{180^\circ}{\pi \;\text{radians}} = \dfrac{R\times 180^\circ}{\pi}$.
"Radians" cancels as the unit, leaving a numeric value expressed in degrees.
$D \text{ degrees}\; \times \dfrac{\pi \;\text{radians}}{180\; \text{degrees}} = \dfrac{D\pi\;}{180}\;\text{ radians}$.
"Degrees" cancels as the unit, leaving the value expressed in radians.
Moved from comments:
Note that slope per radian is a ratio: $\;\dfrac{\text{slope}}{\text{radians}}.\;$ So to obtain "slope per degree", you need to have $π$ radians in the numerator, to cancel the unit "radians" from the denominator, and $180$ degrees in the denominator, to end with slope/degrees.
Slope itself is not a "unit" per se, meaning it isn't a degree, or radian, a mm, or foot. It is unit-free: even if we assign distance units (meters, say) to displacement: e.g. $Δ\,y\text{m}=y_2\,\text{m}−y_1\,\text{m}$ and $Δ\,x\,\text{m}=x_2\text{m}−x_1\,\text{m},$ then we have $$\text{slope}\,= \dfrac{Δy\,\text{ m}}{Δx\,\text{m}}=\frac{Δy}{Δx},$$ you see that the units "m: meter" attached to "change in y" and "change in x" cancel in the ratio defining slope, leaving us with a unit-free scalar which slope really is.
Best Answer
Another version of Adrian's answer:
For $y=\tan (x)$ as $x \rightarrow \pi/2$, $y$ can take on infinitely many values, but any exact odd multiple of $\pi/2$ (i.e. $\frac {(2n+1) \pi} {2}$) is not defined as $$\frac {\sin (\pi/2)} {\cos (\pi/2)} = \frac {1}{0}\text { (division by zero)}.$$
Conversely, $\arctan y = x$ will produce as many angles as desired, but as $y \rightarrow \infty$, $x \rightarrow \pi/2$ if $y$ is positive and $x \rightarrow 3\pi/2$ if $y$ is negative.
NOTE: The same is true in degrees; substitute $90^\circ$ for $\pi/2$ and $270^\circ$ for $3\pi/2$.