Babylonians

Hey guys, its Pryanka

This was the answer to the question Mr.P gave us in class on Thursday Oct.7

Question: why does a circle have 360 degrees

The ancient Babylonians had a base-60 system. 60, if you notice, is evenly divisible by 1,2,3,4,5 and 6. From there they decided to make the circle equal to 6 x 60 = 360°.

By arbitrarily choosing to divide the circle into 360°, they were able to divide the circle into 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10,12,etc.

There is also some evidence that this relates in part to the number of days in a year being 12 months of around 30 days.