Degree symbol

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Punctuation

This article describes the typographical or mathematical symbol. For other meanings, see Degree

The degree symbol (°, Unicode: U+00B0, HTML: °) is a typographical symbol, or glyph, that is used to represent degrees of arc (see Geographic coordinate system ) or temperature.

1°, 2°, 3°, etc., are also common abbreviations, especially in the medical field, for primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on.

Due to a similar appearance in some fonts in print and on computer screens, some other characters may be mistakenly substituted for it: the "masculine ordinal indicator" (U+00BA, º ), the "ring above" (U+02DA, ˚ ), "superscript zero" (U+2070, ⁰ ), superscript zero proper ( ⁰ ) or superscript letter "o" ( ^o ), and the "ring operator" (U+2218, ∘ ).

Since at least the age of desktop publishing, personal computers have been able to typographically produce the degree symbol. On Apple Computer Mac OSes, the degree sign can be typed by option-shift-8 on most keyboard layouts, including Australian, British, Canadian and U.S. Extended layouts. On Microsoft Windows OSes, the degree sign can be typed by ALT + 0176 on the numeric keypad.

[edit] Typography

The degree symbol was originally an ancient symbol representing the Sun.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Degrees of arc

In the case of degrees of arc, the degree symbol is always printed with no space between it and the number.

[edit] Temperatures

[edit] Degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit

In the case of degrees of temperature, several scientific and engineering standards bodies, BIPM and the U.S. Government Printing Office prescribe printing the degree symbol with a space between the degree symbol and the number, as in "10 °C". However, in many professionally typeset works, including scientific works, such as those published by The University of Chicago Press or Oxford University Press, the degree symbol is printed with no spaces between the number, the symbol, and the C or F representing Celsius or Fahrenheit, as in "10°C". Still others place the space between the degree sign and the letter (10° C), in a manner probably no longer recommended by any of the major style guides.

[edit] Kelvin

The degree symbol is never used to refer to temperatures measured in kelvins — the freezing point of water, for instance, is simply written as 273.15 K. The SI fundamental temperature unit is Kelvin, not degree Kelvin.

[edit] References

de:Gradzeichen fr:Degré (symbole) he:מעלה (סימן) it:° no:Grad (symbol) ru:Знак градуса sv:Gradtecken (symbol)