3 ms·
It's not a pure coincidence. Coefficients used for time measurements (12, 24, 60) were deliberately chosen to have as many (small) integer divisors as possible.
by oytis 8y ago
It's not a pure coincidence. Coefficients used for time measurements (12, 24, 60) were deliberately chosen to have as many (small) integer divisors as possible.
- mywittyname 8y agoI was going to make a comment to this effect -- I think this is by design. This is a logical alternative to our metric system. We use powers of ten for increasing units because we operate in base-10. Older civilizations created larger units by multiplying a smaller unit by either an existing member of the set, or the next largest factor. So you end up with a sequence like 2, 6 (3x2), 12 (3x2x2), 60 (5x3x2x2), 360 (6x5x3x2x2), 2520 (7x360), etc. In effect, this is akin to saying a kilogram is 10^3 grams. It's novel to use because we were not taught to think that way. I bet a Babylonian would find this tweet to be kind of obvious.