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Archive Question #0099

Why do they measure angles in degree's?

A good question to do with the history of maths. I believe that this goes back to the babalonians who mapped out the night sky - they had a different numbering scheme (didn't count in tens like we do) so 360 made sense to them. I will do a bit more checking. - unless anyone else knows differently?

Greg

The 12/60 system of measuring was in order to make it easy to do division. If you think of twelve it can be divided by 2,3,4 and 6. and 60 can be divided by 2,3,4,5,6,10 and 12. 12*60 is 360 and so that made a useful number for lots of divisors. Incidentally, it also applies to time as well as angles - that's why there are twelve hours in a day (OK, 24 really) and when you hear of boats travelling at so many notts (or is it knotts) this is nautical miles an hour. A nautical mile is the distance you get when you move through an anlge of one minute (which is a 60th of a degree) across the surface of the earth. Travelling at 60 notts you will cover one degree of the earth's surface in an hour and it would take you 360 hours to go all the way round the world.

Brian

Its knots - and here is why did you know how they measured speed in knots?? They had a piece of rope and they tied knots it it at standard intervals and then they placed a weight on the end. This was dragged behind the boat - the number of knots that showed on the surface was your speed. The faster the boat went the more knots showed, the slower, then less knots showed. Simple huh?

Greg