Question

Hi! Express the angle in terms of degrees, minutes, and seconds, to the nearest second.
14.878°

Answer 1

See if this makes sense. I am still processing it.

Here's How: 1.The whole units of degrees will remain the same (i.e. in 121.135° longitude, start with 121°).
2.Multiply the decimal by 60 (i.e. .135 * 60 = 8.1).
3.The whole number becomes the minutes (8').
4.Take the remaining decimal and multiply by 60. (i.e. .1 * 60 = 6).
5.The resulting number becomes the seconds (6"). Seconds can remain as a decimal.
1.Take your three sets of numbers and put them together, using the symbols for degrees (°), minutes (‘), and seconds (")

http://geography.about.com/library/howto/htdegrees.htm

Answer 2

I got the 14 whole degrees, then 52', then 40.8". See what you get. @abigailmurcia

Answer 3

Just think of it as a units conversion.

There are 60 minutes in 1 degree, 60 seconds in 1 minute.

So using the conversion factor \(\large \dfrac {60~min}{1~deg}\):
\(\large 0.878~\cancel{deg}\times \dfrac {60~min}{1~\cancel{deg}}=52.68~min\)

So now you have converted the "partial degrees" into minutes and partial minutes. Now you do the same thing with the conversion factor \(\large \dfrac {60~sec}{1~min}\) to convert the partial minutes to seconds.