Niki Tonsky
Real talk. If circle is 360 degrees, why is Earth taking 365 days to revolve? Where are extra 5 coming from?
Mar 25 at 10:47amWeb
Show threadMatt LaceyMar 25
@nikitonsky Wait, have we been measuring angles with an incorrect metric all this time?!
Show threadMagical Thinker™ 80lvlMar 25
@nikitonsky very nice trap, I'm jealous
Show threadJesse WilsonMar 25
@nikitonsky Kevin Bacon?
Show threaddrěvo dužestv:oooooo:ĺno 🍕🍍Mar 25
@nikitonsky built-in holiday season.
Show threadCameron PurdyMar 25
@nikitonsky The "360 degrees" is from HRM Imperial System of Measures. The Metric System uses 365.25 degrees, which is much simpler.
Show threadMark DominusMar 25

@nikitonsky It's because it was prophesied that the god Set could not be killed by anyone who was born on any day of the year, or in the night. So Thoth the wise went to Khonsu the moon god, gambled with him, and won some of his light, from which he made five new days that are not part of the year. (This is why the moon's light wanes.) The god Horus was born on one of the five new days, and destroyed Set.

Hope this helps!

Show threadLe NicolasMar 25
@nikitonsky that’s thermal compensation due to upper atmosphere friction, thus adding 5,25ºC to the initial 360.
Show threadnoncommutativegeometryMar 25
@nikitonsky I am not an expert, but it might be a combination of the fact that counting in groups of 60s was a thing (time is still counted like that for example; it has a lot of divisors, which is convenient) _and_ that the year is somehow very close to that 🤷‍♂️
In particular, you wouldn't want the angle to be 365°, because you lose most nice divisors! Actually, for any number between 361 and 365, either the half circle or a third of a turn are not expressible with integer values 🤔
Show threadnoncommutativegeometryMar 25
@nikitonsky I guess what I want to say is really that the process potentially went the other way around. First people noticed that the earth revolves around the sun in ~365 days. Then they wanted to encode this number in a unit of measurement. But the unit should be convenient, which imposes nice divisibility conditions on the number for a whole turn. The closest number to 365 which is divisible by 2,3 and 5 is 360. This might explain it. It might also be completely wrong
Show threadBananaftMar 25
@nikitonsky it's close enough and have more dividers
Show threadPointlessOne Mar 25

@nikitonsky That’s a really good troll question. 👍

But if it's actual real talk: orbit time has nothing to do with the circle. Every planet in the solar system has its own orbital period and none of them are connected to circle. Well, there’s π in there but it's constant the only free factors are the masses of the orbiting bodies, and the shape of the orbit.