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Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#91

Post by ctdonath »

drostie wrote: post #57
spodek wrote: post #26

As an American with a physics background, a while ago I casually reviewed how bad our non-metric system is -- http://joshuaspodek.com/metric-system-isnt -- and found it not nearly as bad as people treat it. Among other things, when I build things it's useful to divide in half a few times, which is easier with inches and feet. And I've found no benefit to Celsius's 0 and 100 coinciding with water's state changing. I b…

It is extremely inconvenient that time is base-24 and base-60 while everything else in the metric system is base-10; it leads, for example, to a difficult conversion between the "meters per second" of the physics class and the "km/hr" of the highway. One surprisingly frustrating thing is that if you view a day as a million "instants" then an instant is actually a very human number, about the human reaction time or so…

"we don't need more units!"

Yes, some units are useful for particular interests. Create them as they're needed and useful. Base-10 time would make more sense. Celsius at least coordinates notable values with common materials.

Some units are just stupid. The lead article gives an unsatisfactory explanation of base-12/60 time (admitting near the end the reason for base-60 is unknown); trying to explain clocks to toddlers is proving annoying (I can't explain it if it doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense). Fahrenheit is just an arbitrary marking on a scale and seeing how reality happened to line up.

http://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#92

Post by MereInterest »

drewblay wrote: post #53
spodek wrote: post #26

As an American with a physics background, a while ago I casually reviewed how bad our non-metric system is -- http://joshuaspodek.com/metric-system-isnt -- and found it not nearly as bad as people treat it. Among other things, when I build things it's useful to divide in half a few times, which is easier with inches and feet. And I've found no benefit to Celsius's 0 and 100 coinciding with water's state changing. I b…

>And I've found no benefit to Celsius's 0 and 100 coinciding with water's state changing. I agree, I like how Fahrenheit degrees are smaller and therefore degrees in Fahrenheit are more exact.

Can you feel a difference of 1 degree Fahrenheit? Does it change your behavior? Do you need an extra sweater because it is 57 degrees inside instead of 58? As someone who has grown up with it, I would argue that the Fahrenheit system is too granular.

In general, if I ask someone what the temperature is, it will be estimated as "low 70s" or "high 50s". Never have I met anyone who would feel the temperature and then declare that it is 72 degrees, as opposed to 71 or 73. This suggests that the granularity is greater than what people feel, and is unnecessary for day-to-day use.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#94

Post by qbrass »

drostie wrote: post #57
spodek wrote: post #26

As an American with a physics background, a while ago I casually reviewed how bad our non-metric system is -- http://joshuaspodek.com/metric-system-isnt -- and found it not nearly as bad as people treat it. Among other things, when I build things it's useful to divide in half a few times, which is easier with inches and feet. And I've found no benefit to Celsius's 0 and 100 coinciding with water's state changing. I b…

It is extremely inconvenient that time is base-24 and base-60 while everything else in the metric system is base-10; it leads, for example, to a difficult conversion between the "meters per second" of the physics class and the "km/hr" of the highway. One surprisingly frustrating thing is that if you view a day as a million "instants" then an instant is actually a very human number, about the human reaction time or so…

What about scaling instants up to a year? A kiloday would be 2.74 years. Which doesn't seem to mean anything in human terms.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#95

Post by toki5 »

DougWebb wrote: post #24
hugofirth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would you have an article referring to an open question phrased?

"We wasted our time writing this. Now you can waste your time reading it."

That's not fair at all. I enjoyed reading about ancient timekeeping and the theories that powered them. I had no idea how they tracked time at night, for example; now I do.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#96

Post by desireco42 »

spodek wrote: post #26

As an American with a physics background, a while ago I casually reviewed how bad our non-metric system is -- http://joshuaspodek.com/metric-system-isnt -- and found it not nearly as bad as people treat it. Among other things, when I build things it's useful to divide in half a few times, which is easier with inches and feet. And I've found no benefit to Celsius's 0 and 100 coinciding with water's state changing. I b…

Imperial system is bad, even for you who grown up with it, it should be obvious how inconvenient it is. As for temperature, while F is not telling me anything useful, C is always telling me if it will rain or snow, actually when it snows it is always closer to 0 (or 32).

As article mentioned, we got time from Babylonians, who got it from Summerians. Time and calendar are one of the weirder things we deal with. I used internet time for a while, you know the Swatch thing. It looks weird in the beggining, but very quickly you get it and it works well and it is convenient that it is not time-zone dependant. And that was just a marketing gimmick from Swatch.

I think the whole idea that we somehow manage to create bridges and build buildings despite weird measures we use, is more testament to our ability to overcome difficult obstacles.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#97

Post by dragontamer »

ctdonath wrote: post #91
drostie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely inconvenient that time is base-24 and base-60 while everything else in the metric system is base-10; it leads, for example, to a difficult conversion between the "meters per second" of the physics class and the "km/hr" of the highway. One surprisingly frustrating thing is that if you view a day as a million "instants" then an instant is actually a very human number, about the human reaction time or so…

"we don't need more units!" Yes, some units are useful for particular interests. Create them as they're needed and useful. Base-10 time would make more sense. Celsius at least coordinates notable values with common materials. Some units are just stupid. The lead article gives an unsatisfactory explanation of base-12/60 time (admitting near the end the reason for base-60 is unknown); trying to explain clocks to toddle…

Fahrenheit was supposed to be 0 degrees for freezing, and 100 for body temperature.

It turns out that Fahrenheit's reference thermometer was a bit... off... however.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#98

Post by stevesearer »

DanBC wrote: post #80
eric_the_read wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're absolutely right. Thing is, most of the time, when dealing with miles, I don't care how many feet it is. Any distance measured in miles is sufficiently large that its equivalent in feet is largely irrelevant. I suppose it's nice to know that 1.73 km is 1730 meters, but either way, it's a medium-long walk. If I needed to convert all the time ( I suspect this it's really only when using compound units like p…

Cups are nice because it promotes a "feel" for cooking rather than treating it as a science where the recipe must be followed exactly.

Baking is actually science-like and needs to be done with precision while cooking is much more about having a feel for the ingredients and tastes.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#99

Post by vadman »

raldi wrote: post #90
vadman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are asked what date it is, do you think hardest about the month or the day? For most people it's the day, so it makes sense for it to come first.

When I ask what time it is, do you think harder about the minute or the hour?

The hour. Minutes are usually unimportant for day to day life, as long as I am in the right hour. This is not true of month-day though. I imagine most people would be caring more about day than month. The day is both more important and harder to remember, so it makes sense for it to come first.

Re: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?

#100

Post by dribnet »

fjcaetano wrote: post #42
abgv wrote: post #38

From what I've read, the reason is simple: Base 12: 12 is a number that can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6. This makes it a much better fit than base 10, which can only be divided by 2 and 5. Base 60: As good as base 12 is, it misses division by 5. So what do you do to make it divisible? You multiply 12 x 5 = 60. Now you can divide an hour in 2 parts of 30 minutes each, 3 parts of 20 minutes, 4 parts of 15 minutes, 5 pa…

Base 60 has many advantages, but bare in mind that this is dated almost 4000 years ago. When people developed language and started counting, they would need something to keep track and help them go from one number to the other, so the finger tip theory is actually quite accurate.

I find the factor theory much more plausible for 4000 years ago than the finger tip theory. Why are there 24 beers in a case? Because 2 * 3 * 4 and the geometry of efficient packing. This would have been as true then as now.
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