Why are there 360 degrees in a circle?

Roxanne33

It has to do with the Babylonians, who used a base 60 number system. The equilateral triangle has 60 degrees at each angle, then the hexagon (6 equilateral triangles), therefore the circle has 360 degrees. It is interesting to note that 60 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. http://www.wonderquest.com/circle.htm [Link added March 24, 2008 -- Zbeckabee] Jul 22 00, 6:02 PM

zbeckabee

A circle has 360 degrees, but it also has 400 gradients and approximately 6.2831853 radians. It all depends on what *units* you measure your angles with. Say you think 360 is a terrible number, and you think that you want a circle to have 100 "somethings" in it. Well, you divide up the circle into 100 equal angles, all coming out from the center, and then you call one of these angles a "deeg." Then you've just defined a new way to measure a circle. 100 deegs are in a circle. This invented unit, the deeg, is much like the degree, except the degree is smaller (why?). They are both angles. Just as 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters, although the centimeter is smaller, the inch and centimeter are both units of length. So the ancient Babylonians (not the Greeks), decided that a circle should contain 360 degrees. In one degree there are 60 minutes (though they have the same name, one minute-angle is not the same as one minute-time). Furthermore, in one minute there are 60 seconds (again, one second-angle is not one second-time, though they are the same word). The British military chose a different way to divide the circle, specifically, 400 gradients in one circle. So one gradient is a tad bit smaller than a degree. And what's a radian? It's what mathematicians use because there's a way to divide the circle into a number of parts that happen to make certain computations easy. http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58395.html Mar 24 08, 10:34 AM

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