Why is circle 360 degrée?
Answers
Answer:
The Mesopotamians considered a circle as 360 degree. They loved the number 60. It's a useful and easily divisible number, which made it ideal for both early mathematics and commercial trade. The Mesopotamians passed their base-60 numerical system to the ancient Egyptians, who used it to divide a circle into 360 degrees.
The 360-degree circle worked out great: The Egyptians loved perfect triangles, and exactly six of them fit into a circle. Therefore, six triangular slices of 60 degrees each made for a sensible 360-degree dissection of a circle. The Egyptians, who invented the degree symbol, also came up with the first calendar based on a 360-day year, which is only off by 5.25 days. Since then, the 360-degree circle has more than stood the test of time, it has made its mark on time itself: When time was first recorded on the face of a circle, it was an easy leap to divide hours into 60 minutes and minutes into 60 seconds. These are some of the uses of dividing a circle into 360 degree parts.
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Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
The Sumerians watched the Sun, Moon, and the five visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), primarily for omens. They did not try to understand the motions physically. They did, however, notice the circular track of the Sun's annual path across the sky and knew that it took about 360 days to complete one year's circuit. Consequently, they divided the circular path into 360 degrees to track each day's passage of the Sun's whole journey. This probably happened about 2400 BC.
That's how we got a 360 degree circle. Around 1500 BC, Egyptians divided the day into 24 hours, though the hours varied with the seasons originally. Greek astronomers made the hours equal. About 300 to 100 BC, the Babylonians subdivided the hour into base-60 fractions: 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. The base 60 of their number system lives on in our time and angle divisions.
An 100-degree circle makes sense for base 10 people like ourselves. But the base-60 Babylonians came up with 360 degrees and we cling to their ways-4,400 years later.