3 ms·

The base 60 Sexagesimal system used by the Sumerians is always an interesting one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexa

• bfrydl 9y ago
  > The number 60, a superior highly composite number, has twelve factors, namely 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60, of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers. With so many factors, many fractions involving sexagesimal numbers are simplified. It really makes a lot of sense actually.
  • mjlee 9y ago
    This is why I still do woodwork (as a hobby) in imperial units.
• yorwba 9y ago
  TFA has a section on Assyrian, but that's a decimal system, which made me wonder where the sexagesimal came from. It appears that although Assyrian and earlier Akkadian were written in cuneiform, they are Semitic languages that adopted their writing system from the otherwise unrelated Sumerian language, and apparently didn't bother to adapt the numerals to the decimal system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian
  • jacobolus 9y ago
    Akkadians et al. kept using both decimal and sexagesimal arithmetic in parallel.