
Why are There 60 Minutes in an Hour? - dsil
http://scienceray.com/mathematics/applied-mathematics/why-are-there-60-minutes-in-an-hour/
======
nopassrecover
There is a book called "Civilization One" which talks about possible
influences ancient cultures had on modern measurement systems. It's
conclusions will probably be taken as a conspiracy theory by most but I found
the book interesting nonetheless.

It actually goes into a theory of why the mathematics was the way it was
(based on astrological observations rather than purely number of factors)
which offers an interesting perspective on it all. The conclusion is largely
that our measurement systems are deduced from our environment and that there
is commonality between imperial and metric systems, both being derived well in
the past.

------
jbm
I've been thinking about this for years now. I could never understand why no
one had ever set 100 "minutes" to an hour.

~~~
lionhearted
I've thought about this too. Basically, once you switched, you'd obsolete a
hell of a lot of stuff. For it to make sense, a large portion of the developed
world would have to switch at the same time as you too. So unlikely to happen.

At the same time, I'm still trying to figure out why the USA doesn't strike
imperial measurement from the books.

~~~
ckinnan
The US is a dual system-- people are free to use whatever system they want,
but business is encouraged to use metric, especially for trade.

There was a big push in the 1970s to teach and adopt the metric system on a
broad basis-- I remember there were even km speed limit signs-- but it failed.
Americans think in feet, inches, miles, gallons, and pounds....imperial still
has the first-mover advantage 400 years later!

------
nirmal
Interesting, I had no idea that Sumerians counted with there hands in this
way. I've always counted like this because my parents and almost every Indian
I know does as well.

------
dustmop
I don't buy the cause and effect with regards to 360 degrees in a circle. If
anything, 360 comes from the close approximation to 365, since pre-civilized
humans would care more about the length of a year than divisibility. It's
possible that the base-60 system was in fact back-ported from this more
important and naturalistic number.

~~~
mgenzel
I do sometimes wonder if the people from ancient civilizations could see what
we think about their writing and tools and culture, whether they would just
laugh out loud. "No, no, that's just a spoon! And that little squiggle? That's
a curse word, you idiots!"

------
TallGuyShort
Once when I visited a museum on a field trip, the curator explained that it
was because the gene for 6 fingers was actually very common among Ancient
egyptians, and so the use of base-6 and base-12 number systems became popular
in astronomy and architecture. I haven't heard that since, however, and I'm
not sure how true it is.

~~~
CamperBob
This museum wasn't in Kansas, was it?

------
viggity
Wouldn't you be able to count up to 72, not 60 with two hands?

12 from hand one + 12 * 5 from hand two = 72

~~~
darshan
With 12 phalanges on each hand that can be marked by the thumb of the same
hand, there are 12 possibilities on each hand, or 12 * 12 = 144 possible
combinations of marked phalanges with two hands.

The article made it clear, both through the text and the picture, that only
one hand used the phalanx counting method, while the other hand simply used
digits as we do today. Thus, with 12 phalanges to choose from on one hand and
5 digits to choose from on the other, we have 12 * 5 = 60 combinations.

~~~
nomoresecrets
The very image and text used in the article implies that the original poster
is correct.

Look at the example for 32 - it is given as 8 + 2x12. The hand on the right
has two fingers extended. Clearly all fingers can be extended in this image,
and then the number would be 8 + 5x12 = 68. If the left hand is used to count
to 12, the number is 12 + 5x12, or 12+60=72.

Either the limit is 60, or the images/text in the article are wrong.

~~~
darshan
You're right! I didn't look closely enough. You can indeed symbolize 72 with
the method shown in the picture.

Now that I finally get what viggity was saying however, I think that what you
can count to with two hands wasn't what was significant -- it was that a full,
open hand was worth 60.

------
csomar
I wonder one thing: How Babylonian and Egyptian exchanged those informations
and they use different languages and have different culture... This is more
powerful than the Internet :D

------
cmos
Actually, I didn't read all that far because I was wondering why they would
popup a facebook bar on the bottom.

Any reason for that? Do they get paid for it?

------
dhughes
There is a great explanation of why Sumerians use 60 but I can't find the
link.

In a nutshell the theory is: Sumerians counted each segment of their fingers
using their thumb as a pointer (thumb segments were not counted) three
segments per finger. They could do that five times using each finger as a
holding place, so 3 * 4 = 12 * 5 = 60

