3 ms·

I believe the 360 degrees is attributed to Babylonians, who were using the Sumerian base 60 number system (6*60=360)

• handsclean 1y ago
  To elaborate a little, an advantage of this is there are many numbers it’s evenly divisible by. 60: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 100: 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50 360: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, 180
  • kps 1y ago
    60 and 360 are superior highly composite numbers¹. ¹ https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SuperiorHighlyCompositeNumber.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SuperiorHighlyCompositeNumber....
• AndrewOMartin 1y ago
  I just can't resist, pointing out that a "minute" is what you get when you split up an hour into 60 minute (i.e. the word pronounced my-newt) pieces, and a "second" is what you get if you break a minute into 60 pieces (i.e. you've performed the division a "second" time). By this logic, 0.016 (recurring) seconds should be a called a "third".
  • ralfd 1y ago
    > (i.e. the word pronounced my-newt) "minute" comes from latin "pars minuta" and the "i" should be pronounced like in "minimum" > By this logic, 0.016 (recurring) seconds should be a called a "third". It should be "tertia". I found that in German and Polish it was used that way, but don't know about english: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertie_(Winkel) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertie_(Winkel) https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercja_k%C4%85towa https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercja_k%C4%85towa
    • card_zero 1y ago
      Should be the etymology of trice (but isn't). Odd omission from English. Commodores had a 1/60 second "jiffy" for timing interrupts, that's all I could find.
      • thaliaarchi 1y ago
        Unix V1 also used 1/60 seconds
• nyeah 1y ago
  It's attributed, but the Babylonians knew a year was about 360 days.