noun
definition
A sexagesimal fraction.
adjective
definition
Of, pertaining to, proceeding by, or based on the number sixty.
Examples of sexagesimal in a Sentence
The Babylonian system was sexagesimal, thus (18) --
This whole class seems to cling to sites of Phoenician trade, and to keep clear of Greece and the north -- perhaps a Phoenician form of the 129 system, avoiding the sexagesimal multiples.
The Babylonians adopted 60 for both these purposes, thus giving us the sexagesimal division of angles and of time.
The Greeks originally used unit-fractions, like the Egyptians; later they introduced the sexagesimal fractions of the Babylonians, extending the system to four or more successive subdivisions of the unit representing a degree.
In the sexagesimal system the numerators of the successive fractions (the denominators of which were the successive powers of 60) were followed by', ", "', ", the denominator not being written.
There was, however, no development in the direction of decimals in the modern sense, and the Arabs, by whom the Hindu notation of integers was brought to Europe, mainly used the sexagesimal division in the ' " "' notation.
Even where the decimal notation would seem to arise naturally, as in the case of approximate extraction of a square root, the portion which might have been expressed as a decimal was converted into sexagesimal fractions.
The sexagesimal system of division was originally used by the ancient Babylonian astronomers, was adopted by Ptolemy; and the sixtieth part of a degree, and its further subdivision into sixty parts, was called in Latin pars minutae prim'ae, and pars minutae secundae respectively, hence the English "minute" and "second."
I „ Logarithms of the ratios of arcs to sines from 04 00000 to 0 4.05000, and log sines throughout the quadrant 4 „ Logarithms of the ratios of arcs to tangents from 0 4 00000 to 0 4.05000, and log tangents throughout the quadrant 4 The trigonometrical results are given for every hundred-thousandth of the quadrant (to" centesimal or 3" 24 sexagesimal).
Figure 19 shows an example of an STL format catalog containing several columns of complex sexagesimal angles.
In the example the columns of angles RA and DEC are stored in the file as sexagesimal hours and degrees respectively.
The usual rules for interpreting sexagesimal values in expressions are followed.
The second of the three systems was the sexagesimal system, with numerals denoted by letters of the Arabic alphabet.
These components are optional; the format for a given tabulated angle may contain zero, one or two sexagesimal subdivisions.