Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The concepts of degrees, minutes, and seconds—as they relate to the measure of both angles and time—derive from Babylonian astronomy and time-keeping. Influenced by the Sumerians, the ancient Babylonians divided the Sun's perceived motion across the sky over the course of one full day into 360 degrees.
The time is usually based on a 12-hour clock. A method to solve such problems is to consider the rate of change of the angle in degrees per minute. The hour hand of a normal 12-hour analogue clock turns 360° in 12 hours (720 minutes) or 0.5° per minute. The minute hand rotates through 360° in 60 minutes or 6° per minute. [1]
sexagesimal degree: degrees, minutes, and seconds : 40° 26′ 46″ N 79° 58′ 56″ W; degrees and decimal minutes: 40° 26.767′ N 79° 58.933′ W; decimal degrees: +40.446 -79.982; There are 60 minutes in a degree and 60 seconds in a minute. Therefore, to convert from a degrees minutes seconds format to a decimal degrees format, one may ...
One hour of time is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute is divided into 60 seconds. Thus, a measurement of time such as 3:23:17 (3 hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds) can be interpreted as a whole sexagesimal number (no sexagesimal point), meaning 3 × 60 2 + 23 × 60 1 + 17 × 60 0 seconds.
For example, 40.1875° = 40° 11′ 15″. Additional precision can be provided using decimal fractions of an arcsecond. Maritime charts are marked in degrees and decimal minutes to facilitate measurement; 1 minute of latitude is 1 nautical mile. The example above would be given as 40° 11.25′ (commonly written as 11′25 or 11′.25). [13]
For higher precision, the seconds are specified with a decimal fraction. An alternative representation uses degrees and minutes, and parts of a minute are expressed in decimal notation, thus: 23° 27.5′ E. Degrees may also be expressed as a decimal fraction: 23.45833° E.
Degrees, therefore, are subdivided as follows: 360 degrees (°) in a full circle; 60 arc-minutes (′) in one degree; 60 arc-seconds (″) in one arc-minute; To put this in perspective, the full Moon as viewed from Earth is about 1 ⁄ 2 °, or 30 ′ (or 1800″). The Moon's motion across the sky can be measured in angular size: approximately ...
minutes of arc 54′ In trigonometry , the gradian – also known as the gon (from Ancient Greek γωνία ( gōnía ) 'angle'), grad , or grade [ 1 ] – is a unit of measurement of an angle , defined as one-hundredth of the right angle ; in other words, 100 gradians is equal to 90 degrees.