OT: Rant about degres Celsius (was: introduction) <013501c178ec$0a69b7c0$28e1e5d8@muke> <20011129213350.B6813@zapp>

> Date:         Thu, 29 Nov 2001 21:33:50 -0600
> From: Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
>
> On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 10:39:31AM -0500, Muke Tever wrote:
> > As for the symbol attached, it probably doesn't count separating angle and
> > temperature degrees as it's the same symbol ;p
Yes --- and it's actually a superscript zero. At some point in the
late middle ages, European scholars started doing astronomical
calculations in the Babylonian base-60 system --- but to keep track of
how many divisors of 60 each number group represented, they put little
superscript roman numerals on them, using the newly introduced zero
for the units place. (The number groups themselves were written in
Arabic (so-called) numerals).

So 0 divisors (units) were degrees : 1