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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?

#111

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

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…

IMO the reason why Americans prefer Farenheit to Celsius is that the 0 and 100 points correspond to roughly the limits of common outdoor temperatures, rather than water's state changes.

Pretty much the same argument for miles per hour vs kilometers per hour - 100 mph is all anyone's ever going to go during a normal day.

That's an interesting point about being able to divide by half more than once for feet/inches, though - I hadn't thought of that before.

(From another American with a physics background)

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

#113

Post by nfoz »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #111
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…

IMO the reason why Americans prefer Farenheit to Celsius is that the 0 and 100 points correspond to roughly the limits of common outdoor temperatures, rather than water's state changes. Pretty much the same argument for miles per hour vs kilometers per hour - 100 mph is all anyone's ever going to go during a normal day. That's an interesting point about being able to divide by half more than once for feet/inches, tho…

Let's face it -- people have a strong preference for whatever system they are used to. There's extremely strong inertia, and efforts to try and justify one system over the other are not especially effective.

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

#114

Post by phlo »

raldi wrote: post #64
drewblay wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I have 1.73 miles, I have to do the math to figure out how many feet that is, 1.73*5280~=9134, which is not something that's easy for me to do in my head. How often do you need to do this in reality? Most people in their day-to-day have no need to these conversions.

Whereas quite often you'll need to know how long it’s going to take to drive to a city 90 miles away, and it's quite convenient to use the "1 mile ~= 1 minute" approximation to estimate that it'll take 90 minutes.

And this is where metric really shines: at Autobahn speed (130 kph), 90 miles is only some 66 minutes -- 24 minutes saved over imperial. :)

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

#115

Post by reubenmorais »

raldi wrote: post #70
manish_gill wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the fact that the rest of the world uses those definitions an advantage in and of itself? What is there to be gained by being inconsistent? Relevant picture I found on twitter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bdp2YLFCIAAM1Dy.png

What's that a map of, countries that have placed a man on the moon?

I think it's a map of countries that lost a 125 million dollars Mars probe after failing to properly convert between imperial and metric units.

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

#116

Post by mVChr »

> Interestingly, in order to keep atomic time in agreement with astronomical time, leap seconds occasionally must be added to UTC. Thus, not all minutes contain 60 seconds. A few rare minutes, occurring at a rate of about eight per decade, actually contain 61.

And thus, the programmer's nightmare begins...

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

#117

Post by jhanschoo »

nmc wrote: post #23
justwrote wrote: post #17

You can also find the duodecimal system in languages like English and German: ten, eleven, twelve | thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen zehn, elf, zwölf | dreizehn, vierzehn, fünfzehn, sechzehn

Interestingly enough, in French you find the hexadecimal system: dix, onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize | dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf

In Latin seventeen is septendecim, and sixteen is sedecim (fifteen is quindecim). Language drift has shortened most French words from their Latin ancestors, and the same goes for the numbers for 10-20. I presume that the early French chose to use dix-sept when their words for septendecim and sedecim started to sound the same.

As for dix-huit and dix-neuf, the Romans counted down from twenty; duodeviginti (two-down-from-twenty) is eighteen and undeviginti (one-down-from-twenty).

So it probably made more sense to the early French to say dis-huit and dix-neuf instead.

But one interesting thing about French numbers that you have missed is that it possess a vestigial remnant of the vigesimal (base-20) number system of the Celtics, where 80 is quatre-vignts (four-twentys) to the French, and 90 is quatre-vignts-dix.

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

#118

Post by mVChr »

MereInterest wrote: post #93
nmc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because of Rayleigh scattering [1], son [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering

Why isn't the sky purple, daddy?

Because you have inaccurate cones[1], son

[1] http://physicsfaq.co.uk/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html Section: Why not violet?

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

#119

Post by pyre »

dragontamer wrote: post #97
ctdonath wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

How did it manage to be off by 32 (!) for freezing, but fairly close for body temperature? I would expect a constant (or at least same ballpark) error.

I imagine it had something to do with the medium used for the thermometer?

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

#120

Post by raldi »

reubenmorais wrote: post #115
raldi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's that a map of, countries that have placed a man on the moon?

I think it's a map of countries that lost a 125 million dollars Mars probe after failing to properly convert between imperial and metric units.

Exactly! This is why it's dangerous and irresponsible to allow the metric system into your space program.
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