Can anyone say the real reason for a circle be divided into 360 degrees?
why circle divided into 360 degrees?
Because it's.. better than... 359 degrees? 
I think it's the same as many other forms of measurement that, when think about it, make little sense. Just about every single non-metric system, for instance. I can't say I know the traditional roots for why circles are like that though. Numbers divisible by 12 seem to play a large part in many such things... I believe this may have been a common number in some previous civilisation, or something...?
I think it's the same as many other forms of measurement that, when think about it, make little sense. Just about every single non-metric system, for instance. I can't say I know the traditional roots for why circles are like that though. Numbers divisible by 12 seem to play a large part in many such things... I believe this may have been a common number in some previous civilisation, or something...?
| sathiyasri wrote: |
| Can anyone say the real reason for a circle be divided into 360 degrees? |
Its an absurd question, anyway its defined that way couse 1 degree = 2*PI/360 radians so go ahead and define yourself something else and you can divide it pretty much to anything.
i think the number 360 has something to do with triangles. circles and triangles half a lot of play in trig. i mean the most basic thing to remember is that all corners of a triangle add to 180 degrees. 180 as a number alone does not mean anything but this is half the rotation of a full rotation, or standing in one position and turning half way around. a perfect triangle has 60 degrees in every corner. 6 corners of perfect triangles combined equal 360. bleh i'm done with highschool, this all has no practical integration to an average american's life.
| Sappho wrote: | ||
Its an absurd question, |
No, that was an absurd answer to a very valid question.
I'm looking forward to some of the reasons presented here.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle#Numbers_and_the_Circle
| Quote: |
| The division of the circle into 360 degrees dates back to ancient India, as found in the Rig Veda:
Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three. Who can comprehend this? On it are placed together three hundred and sixty like pegs. They shake not in the least. (Dirghatama, Rg Veda 1.164.4  |
Now, this is a question that keeps me awake in the night
The earliest use of 360 degrees that I know about goes back to Babylonia. In the book, "A history of PI" , Petr Beckman wrote....
(remember that they used base 60 in Babylonia)
I imagine someone else can explain it better, but I am assuming the magic number 6 from the above relation was a major division and each was divided by 60 (just like we would divide something into 10s because we like base 10) resulting in 360 sections.
-moving this topic to Science and Nature-
(remember that they used base 60 in Babylonia)
| Quote: |
| The Babylonians knew, of course, that the perimeter of a hexagon is
exactly equal to six times the radius of the circumscribed circle, in fact that was evidently the reason why they chose to divide the circle into 360 degrees (and we are still burdened with that figure to this day). The tablet, therefore, gives ... Pi = 25/8 = 3.125. |
I imagine someone else can explain it better, but I am assuming the magic number 6 from the above relation was a major division and each was divided by 60 (just like we would divide something into 10s because we like base 10) resulting in 360 sections.
-moving this topic to Science and Nature-
| sathiyasri wrote: |
| Can anyone say the real reason for a circle be divided into 360 degrees? |
A very intelligent and pertinent question !!! Wikipedia has the answer.
The Babylonians used base 60 as a means of counting. They made 2pi roughly six and multiplied by 60? There was some King who decreed that pi should be 4 to make it a nice round number.
truly funny!
It is indeed just a number that some ancient people came up with (plus it's easy to divide).
Americans use 400 degrees (grads), and scientific peeps (mathematicians+physicists) use Radians most of the time ( 2*pi = 1 circle [360 degrees])
You could come up with your own system, with a hundred degrees in a circle, or just one, or anything else you would like.
Just remember, these are just numbers, they don't fundamentally change the calculations you use them in (on computers, it's only a matter of tellign the computer WHICH of these systems you are using (as any number can be used for any of the systems, only they mean somethign ENTIRELY different in every system
) )
Americans use 400 degrees (grads), and scientific peeps (mathematicians+physicists) use Radians most of the time ( 2*pi = 1 circle [360 degrees])
You could come up with your own system, with a hundred degrees in a circle, or just one, or anything else you would like.
Just remember, these are just numbers, they don't fundamentally change the calculations you use them in (on computers, it's only a matter of tellign the computer WHICH of these systems you are using (as any number can be used for any of the systems, only they mean somethign ENTIRELY different in every system
) ) |