DEGREES
by
Alan A Sandercott

Word: Hardware
Question: Why were circles divided into 360 degrees?

Hardware, hmmm? The first two things that come to mind are, ‘Home Hardware’ and ‘Computer Hardware’. I prefer computer hardware and computer software as items I can easily identify with. I doubt that a day goes by that I’m not parked in front of my computer working at something. I swear I’d be like a fish out of water without my computer as a crutch. I need only think back to any power outage when my computer sat silent and devoid of the little flashing lights that seem to fascinate me.

I often wonder how different my school days would have been if I’d had a computer instead of pencil and paper. Probably my worst subject in school was math which, ironically, turned out to be my favourite subject in later years. I used to cringe at the thought of geometry and all those weird shaped gadgets in the rusty tin box in my desk. It all seemed Greek to me, which leads to the question part of my March submission.

Why were circles divided into 360 degrees? Why not 180 degrees, or 720 degrees? I have my own thought on the matter. I suspect some mathematician way back when was doodling on a piece of white parchment, we all doodle, right? I imagine him neatly dissecting a circle into equal parts with a straight edge and sharpened quill dipped in ink. With each stroke of his pen the little triangles grew narrower. Finally, after drawing 180 lines through the circle (he was keeping count) the little triangles narrowed to the point where the circle was completely black. At that point he determined a circle could be divided into 360 individual sections, or as we know them, degrees. The rest is history, another school subject I wasn’t particularly fond of. Now if I’d just had a computer . . .