A little birdy who is apparently too shy to post asks the following:
I have a doubt: considering the 360º for earth, and if it takes 24h to a complete rotation, why 1º corresponds to 60 min? It should be 4 min...
DaleSpam
Mar26-08, 11:01 PM
I agree. It is a tradition as sensless and outdated as the mile and the pint.
I believe that the source of it is something along these lines: The word "minute" means small, and I guess a tradition is that 1/60 is a small fraction of something. A second is actually short for the "second minute" or the "second small fraction" so 1/60 of a minute. So 1/60 of anything is a "minute" fraction and 1/3600 of anything is a "second minute" fraction.
sysreset
Mar29-08, 06:33 AM
So a degree is ten "second minutes" of a circle.
Pythagorean
Mar30-08, 04:19 PM
mks is such a beautiful system except the base-60 and base-24 time.
I had a fellow physics major who always asked why we are trying to unify science but we haven't bothered to unify the units yet.