why is the circle divided into 360 degrees not more not less?

Answer 1

The circle is divided into 2PI radians, the rest is pure shamanism.
But seriously, it has something to do with number of days in the year, the motion of celestial bodies and such. The unit is realy old and impractical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_%28angle%29

Answer 2

'Something Special' is wrong, it's 360 degrees worldwide. When they first split up the circle into degrees, they thought there were 360 days in a year, so they split it into the 360 directions the earth would be from the sun each day. When some clever people realized that there aren't 360 days in a year, they didn't update it - would you want to divide a circle into 365.2425 pieces?

Answer 3

It is because as the Ancients observed the motion of the heavens they eventually began to look into the cycles of the heavens and the movement of the earth. Ultimately, they figured that it takes 360 days for the Earth to complete one cycle. So they later transferred this to geometry since this cycle was a circle, the circle was divided into degrees with a total of 360 degrees to the circle.

Later on we discovered the error, there really is not 360 days to a year, it is 365.25 days to a year.

Answer 4

Who cares?
The origin is astronomical, dividing the sky into 24 eqaul segments for the number of hours in a day, then 15 equal parts per hour to accomodate the measure of time according to an ancient hourglass standard.

Answer 5

Because dividing a circle into 6 equal parts is very easy. (And if my thumbs-downer has solid evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to hear it.)

Answer 6

Thank the Sumerians and Babylonians. They counted in 60's.

Answer 7

It depends on the system you are working, it is equivalent to 2*pi radians.

Answer 8

because if you go around in a complete circle it is 360degrees