Talk:Degree (angle)

message: why is each degree divided into 60 parts and each minute into sixty seconds??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.153.52.68 (talk) 19:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is pure speculation, but these subdivisions may also go back to the Babylonian base-60 system.  If so, they defined minutes and seconds as naturally as we would define tenths and hundredths of a degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polyparadigm (talk • contribs) 07:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: i would also like to know why they chose the terms "minutes" and "seconds" - the history section on this page or the sexigesimal page does not address this...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.145.61 (talk) 01:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I heard that a minute was the first minute (mahy-noot) division of a degree (or hour) and a second is the 2nd.  I haven't looked for a source for this, but someone else can if they like. 75.85.51.140 (talk) 09:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Minute comes from Latin, minure, that means decrease, and minus has the same origin. Second also comes from Latin, secundus, that means 2nd. It would be interesting to know how old the division of degrees into minutes and seconds is.Entropeter (talk) 10:48, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Older textbooks also talk about thirds and some even fourths Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  whyyy 

message: Besides degrees of sixtywise, and the metric grade and radian, the following divisions are noted.
1.  The division of the circle into signs and degrees to match the months and days, is ancient, and separately in Egypt, in the Chaldea, and in China, (in the far east).  Such measures are used to record the movements of the sun and the moon and the stars (planets), against the fixed stars.  Although 12 signs are usual, 15 or even 36 signs are recorded too.
2.  The egyptian zodiac contains 36 decans.  The origin of the 24-hour day comes from the count of 24 hours in the 'decimal day', ten hours of sunlight, and hour each of twilights of dawn and dusk, and twelve hours being the rising of twelve decans at night.  It was the greeks that made the hours of equal lengths, and divided them against the chaldean fractions.
2.  According to Sir Thomas L Heath (A manual of greek mathematics,  p384), the Chaldeans used the division of circles into 360 degrees only for astronomy.  Circles in general are rendered as a diameter of 60 ells, with pi=3, gives a circle of 180 ells of 24 digits each.  It is Hipparchus who advamced the elliptic division for general use. 
3.  Angles based on the mil (such as the Swedish and NATO scales), suppose pi is somewhere near 3, and the circle is 1000 units.  The use of such says that at 1000 yards, two points separated by a mill is separated by a yard.  Pi variously equals 3.15 in Sweden, 3.2 in the NATO countries.  In the NATO case, a division with pi=3.2, divides the circle to 6400 mills, which makes the compass points come at 200 mills.
4.  An angle-system one encounters on astronomy chards is HMS of right ascession.  Here, the circle is divided into 24 hours, of 60 minutes of 60 seconds, rather than 360 degrees.  It kind of replicates the standard siderial clock (zenith pointer points to siderial time against RA).
5.  Common angles include the use of clock-face units, eg '4-oclock', where up, forward, or north is 12-oclock.
Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Units II 

message: Before all the instruments and theorems listed in this article were available the most used tool for measurement were an individuals hands. Astronomy was no different. There are 9 hands from the horizon to zenith if held at arms length, palms facing so they can be seen and stacked on top of one another during the count. This makes 36 hands in a circle and when each hand is divided into tens then there are 360 divisions. Thus 360 degrees in a circle, 90 in a right angle and so on and so forth.  
Michael Edwards (Michaelmwe3wm)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelmwe3wm (talk • contribs) 21:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: It is all in the hands

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message: Really? Are the HP calculators' user manuals the best reference for the symbols and conversion factors? And I didn't find the symbol "deg" defined anywhere, it looks more like an abbreviation (which should be "deg." then).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jellby (talk • contribs) 08:35, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  HP user manual as a reference? 

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thread_title:  "Bogengrad" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

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