Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The concepts of degrees, minutes, and seconds—as they relate to the measure of both angles and time—derive from Babylonian astronomy and time-keeping. Influenced by the Sumerians, the ancient Babylonians divided the Sun's perceived motion across the sky over the course of one full day into 360 degrees.
degrees and decimal minutes: 40° 26.767′ N 79° 58.933′ W; decimal degrees: +40.446 -79.982; There are 60 minutes in a degree and 60 seconds in a minute. Therefore, to convert from a degrees minutes seconds format to a decimal degrees format, one may use the formula
This notation leads to the modern signs for degrees, minutes, and seconds. The same minute and second nomenclature is also used for units of time, and the modern notation for time with hours, minutes, and seconds written in decimal and separated from each other by colons may be interpreted as a form of sexagesimal notation.
{{Deg2DMS |positive decimal degrees| p =precision| sup =ms}} |p= is optional and defaults to 3. It is the number of decimal digits that the seconds are rounded to. |sup= is optional and changes the default apostrophe-format for arcminutes and arcseconds (1° 2′ 3″) to the m-s-format for arcminutes and arcseconds (1° 2 m 3 s).
In the case of degrees of angular arc, the degree symbol follows the number without any intervening space, e.g. 30°.The addition of minute and second of arc follows the degree units, with intervening spaces (optionally, non-breaking space) between the sexagesimal degree subdivisions but no spaces between the numbers and units, for example 30° 12 ′ 5″.
For many practical purposes, a degree is a small enough angle that whole degrees provide sufficient precision. When this is not the case, as in astronomy or for geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), degree measurements may be written using decimal degrees (DD notation); for example, 40.1875°.
Whether they are converted to decimal degrees or radians depends upon the particular calculating machine or program. Angles in the hours ( h), minutes ( m), and seconds ( s) of time measure must be converted to decimal degrees or radians before calculations are performed. (1 h = 15° 1 m = 15' 1 s = 15")
Decimal degrees are an alternative to using sexagesimal degrees (degrees, minutes, and seconds - DMS notation). As with latitude and longitude, the values are bounded by ±90° and ±180° respectively. Positive latitudes are north of the equator, negative latitudes are south of the equator.