How is that a circle has 360 degrees?

Question

I mean, why not 500, or 1000, or any other number? In what way was 360 degrees derived? Please don't tell me 180 x 2 !!!

Answer 1

cut a circle into 4 equal pieces, one line down the center and another line perpendicular to that, you can sse 4 equal angles formed by these line, all of which are 90 degrees, so a circle is composed of four 90 degree angles. Add them up and you get.....
you guessed it, 360 degrees!!!!

Answer 2

Hi,

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.

Allow me to explain.
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. The way
they decided this was that they took a circle, say with radius 1 cm.
Then they took a piece of string, and made marks on it, evenly spaced
1 cm apart. Then they took the string and wrapped it around the
circle. They then asked how many little 1 cm pieces of string fit
around the circle, and they got the answer of about 6.2831853
pieces. They decided that the angle that a 1 cm piece of string covers
as it is wrapped about the edge of a circle of radius 1 cm should be
called one radian. Weird but true.

Now, one might wonder why the Babylonians chose the number 360. The
reason is that their number system was based on the number 60. To
compare, we base our number system on 10. For us, 10 is a nice, round
number and we find it very convenient to count in multiples of 10,
like millimeter, centimeter, meter, kilometer, etc. But the
Babylonians liked 60.

Why this was nice for them, nobody knows, but 60 is a nice number too,
because 60 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 5 and 360 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 5. What's so
neat about that, you ask? Well, you will find that 360 is divisible
by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20. There are few other
numbers as small as 360 that have so many different factors. This
makes the degree a very nice unit to divide the circle into an equal
number of parts. 120 degrees is 1/3 of a circle, 90 degrees is 1/4,
and so on.

So while a deeg, being 1/100th of a circle, may seem nice and round to
us ten-fingered folks, it isn't so convenient for dividing a pie into
thirds. I mean, who ever heard of 33-and-a-third deegs for a piece of
pie? I certainly haven't.

Answer 3

Because 360 (or any other multiple of both 6 & 10) is very easily divisible so many more numbers than does....say...500/1000

360 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, etc...
while
500/1000 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, etc...

Therefore, with a value of 360 degrees, the circle (and countless polygons that are derived from it) can be segmented/divided up into many parts without getting into decimals

Answer 4

The ancient babylonians liked the number 60 because it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15 and 30. This makes it very neat for dividing into equal quantities.

They decided to divide the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 seconds. They reckoned 60 was too small a number to divide the circle into, so they multiplied it by 6 to get 360. Everybody else has been using the same system ever since, although the Germans experimented briefly with 400 degrees in a circle (known as grads, there were 100 in a right angle - this makes the angle in an equilateral triangle = 66.666667 grads).

Answer 5

The same people who invented the wheel five or six thousand years ago (the Mesopotamians) also fancied the number sixty, basing their entire number system on it. No one seems to know exactly why--it might even have been related to trade: for commercial purposes, it's helpful to use a number that has many factors, and sixty has twelve of them, more than any other manageable number.... Whatever the reason, the Babylonians picked the system up and passed it on to the Egyptians, who used it to divide the circle into 360 degrees (6 x 60) and who also gave us the symbol for degrees. The Egyptians divided spheres into 360 degrees as well, assigning the first latitude and longitude lines to the earth. This ancient system for dividing the circle has persisted to the present. Each degree of the circle is divided into 60 minutes (60') and each minute into 60 seconds (60").

For more information about the origin of the system for dividing a circle into 360 degrees see also:

Bynum, W. F. Dictionary of the History of Science, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1981. (R 509 B99)
"Circle -- History", Encyclopedia Americana, (1992) vol. 6, p.733.
Gettings, Fred. Secret Symbolism in Occult Art. Harmony Books, New York, 1987 (OV 133 G33)

Answer 6

The Ancients began to look to the heavens at some point. They noticed many of the star patterns repeated after a certain period of time.
At the same time others were working with measuring time, the two came together to agree the earth is round. From this they further concluded the earth follows a pattern of 360 days before repeating. The patterns of the stars also follows this same pattern every 360 days, until they are in the exact same positions.
Today we know there are 365.25 days to a year, but that observation led to the belief there are 360 degrees to any circle and never had been changed.

Answer 7

No-one can mathematically prove a circle has 360 degrees because there are 180 degrees in a circle.

Answer 8

probable be4cause distinctive numbers divide into it with out growing messy fractions: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20 while with a one hundred degree circle you ought to in hardship-free words have 2, 4, 5, 10, 20

Answer 9

There are 361 degrees in a circle but government doesn't want you to know about that extra 1 degree.

Answer 10

this is because total degree is in whole circle is always 360