A New ‘Angle’ in Germany

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 10

A New ‘Angle’ in Germany

BERLIN—Two of the facts which one remembers from schoolday geometry are that there are 90 degrees in a right, angle and that the three angles of a triangle together make up ISO degrees. These were facts such as one never dreamed could be altered. But they will be altered in Germany. For Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior, has decided that henceforth the right angle shall contain* 100 degrees and the angles of a triangle, 200 degrees. Such steps have been taken, it is declared, in order to apply the decimal system even more thoroughly than hitherto. Germany has long followed the metric system first’ introduced by France. German weights are based upon it, the Centigrade or Celsius thermometer of 100 degrees has replaced the Reaumur, and now the angle is to be changed so that, the graduation into 360 degrees is to disappear. All new surveys will be carried out with the new division of the circle inti 4.00 degrees, with decimal sub-division.* for the measurements of the angles. A degree will henceforth be the one-bun dredth part of a. right angle and tht degree will be again subdivided intc decimal parts of one-tenth, one hundred, etc. The JOOth part will ir future be known as a. “minute” am’ the 100th part of a minute will be a “second. ’ ’ The degree will be indicated by n small ‘‘g,” the minute by a small ”c’ - and the second by ‘• cc.’’ Some simplification in the w«aing of the terms i« introduced, e.g., an angle of 61 degrees 43 minutes 21 seconds will be written not as 51g 43c 21cc, but as 5J,421g. All changes in the theodolites used for land surveying must be effected by April 1, 1945. That this new system is not recognized internationally is not so strange, it is explained, since the meter measure has not yet been introduced in navigation. The sea mile is the 60th part of a degree—lBss metres and a degree is the 360th part of the earth’s circumference. It is also realized here that it will take a long time before changes will be introduced in the Anglo-Saxon countries, considering the tenacity with which the old measures based upon yards, feet, inches is maintained.