Hi, my name's Marc.

I'm currently teaching angles to students in grade 10 and I've been asked what's the origin of the terms degrees, radians and gradians.

I know that the radians come from the sexagesimal numerical system of the Babylonians but my kids wanted to know dates and persons who would have brought these terms first.

If you know sites that would help me I'd appreciate you tell me!

Thanks!

Hi Marc,

There are two sites that I look at to try to answer these questions. They are Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics and Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols. They are both kept by Jeff Miller, a teacher at Gulf High School in New Port Richey, Florida.

Cheers,
Harley