Re: unit names

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 15:00 12/7/98 -0800, you wrote:
> Why do we use the same word, degrees, for degrees of temperature and
> degrees of arc?  Does anyone know the history behind this?  What about
> minutes and seconds of arc compared with minutes and seconds of time?
> Is there any logical or historical link?
>
> Thanks for any fun facts you uncover.
>
> Zach

Degree.
Although the word itself carries simply the Latin connotation
of a step, there is an association with that most ancient of
 bases, the sexagesimal, into which parts Fahrenheit divided
his scale following a four thousand tradition due the Babylonians,
of a place value system for money transactions of which sixty
small silver pieces constituted a large silver denomination.
 They easily generalized this convention to angular and temporal
measure.

  You will recall that as recently as 1686 Newton's Principia
divided number not into decimals but into sexagesimals, a feature
 which confounded at least one modern review ( that due to
Chandrasekhar, shortly before his death.)

Brian

brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK