3 ms·
Some of the earliest human civilizations used base 60 for their number system, which comes from counting fingers and knuckles, somehow.
by andrewstuart 4y ago
Some of the earliest human civilizations used base 60 for their number system, which comes from counting fingers and knuckles, somehow.
- numbol 4y agoThis is more to that! 60 is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_highly_composite_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_highly_composite_numb... which means that lot of fractional numbers can be represnted in nice way. And because one year is around 360 days and 12 (another superior highly composite number) is roughly correspond to number of lunar months in the year, people used those to based their calendar and angular measurments around that. And 60 is very close to 64, so it could be nicely represented in binary... (10 is kinda akward, too big for 8 and too small for 16)
- numbol 4y agoalso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossally_abundant_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossally_abundant_number
- kneebonian 4y ago3 knuckles on each digit. 5 digits per appendage, 4 appendages. 3 * 5 * 4 = 60 Actually quite intuitive and impressive.
- andrewstuart 4y agoI think it’s more like this info: https://mathsciencehistory.com/2021/11/09/count-to-60-with-your-phalanges/ https://mathsciencehistory.com/2021/11/09/count-to-60-with-y... They counted to 60 by counting the 3 phalanges on each finger on one hand and with their other hand they indicated each time they added 12 more numbers to their count. So by adding 12 numbers 5 times they were able to count to 60! This is base 60, also known as the sexagesimal number system.
- galleywest200 4y agoThumbs have two knuckles?