Why circles are 360 degrees

The short answer is no. The longer answer involves Babylonian astronomy. Like other ancient peoples, the Mesopotamians observed the changing positions of the sun, moon and five visible planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn against the background of stars in the sky.

Before BC a scribe in the southern city of Uruk, referring to a festival for the goddess Inanna, made it clear that, as Venus, she could be both morning and evening star, depending on whether she appeared before sunrise or after sunset. For them, Venus was a single object and they observed its changing position, along with the other planets and the moon. These positions all lie on the same great circle, called the ecliptic, defined by the apparent motion of the sun as seen from the earth during the course of a year.

In order to record their motions accurately two things are needed: a fixed calendar and a method of recording positions on the ecliptic. Calendars are tricky. Press ESC to cancel.

Skip to content Home Physics Why is a circle degrees and not ? Ben Davis September 27, Why is a circle degrees and not ?

Why are there degrees in a circle history? Why do squares and circles have degrees? When did this way of divvying up a circle become common practice?

Who made this choice? And why? Keep on reading to find out. As an Amazon Associate and a Bookshop. At first thought, it seems like a rather random number to have chosen—why not , or , or degrees? Was it really a random choice? Or was there actually some good reason that was chosen to be the number of divisions in a circle?

What was it? Here one should make the interjection that the Sumerians were first to make one of man's greatest inventions, namely, writing; through written communication, knowledge could be passed from one person to others, and from one generation to the next and future ones.

They impressed their cuneiform wedge-shaped script on soft clay tablets with a stylus, and the tablets were then hardened in the sun. 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 degrees and we are still burdened with that figure to this day.

The tablet, therefore, gives Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

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