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I might not be remembering my History of Math correctly, but my recollection is that the Babylonians used Base 60, and 12 is an even subdivision of that. I also
by _asummers 8y ago
I might not be remembering my History of Math correctly, but my recollection is that the Babylonians used Base 60, and 12 is an even subdivision of that. I also recall other Asian number systems having base 12 in some capacity, so there may be something to the counting methodology he outlined if it showed up in a few separate parts of the world.
Counting that way on one hand and then using the other hand to tally the groups would give you 5 sets of 12 or 60.
- goodpass 8y agoWait, doesn’t that just give you 25?
- _asummers 8y agoNo, counting to 12 using the sections between your knuckles of your 4 fingers using your thumb on same hand will give you 3x4 and then 5 of those is 60. If you were doing fingers as a single digit, you'd get 25, though.
- waterhouse 8y agoWiki[1] seems to support your last sentence's description of how base 60 appeared. Now, that approach would guarantee that your base is a product of two numbers (# fingers * # bones on non-thumb fingers). And, if your non-thumb fingers are roughly equivalent to each other, then that would guarantee it's a product of three numbers (# fingers * # non-thumb fingers * # bones per non-thumb finger). So I would say "it's a product of lots of numbers" does have a lot to do with the origins of base 60. Base 10, of course, is (# hands * # fingers per hand). Base 12 being more factorable than base 10 is just the luck of getting 3 * 4 vs 2 * 5. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal