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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?

#31

Post by jakub_g »

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 Spain on contrary, pentadecimal:

  diez, once, doce, trece, catorce, quince | dieciséis, diecisiete, dieciocho, diecinueve

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

#32

Post by oleganza »

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 Russian, decimal:

восемь (8), девять (9), десять (10) | одиннадцать, двенадцать, тринадцать, четырнадцать, пятнадцать, шестнадцать, семнадцать, восемнадцать, девятнадцать.

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

#33

Post by manish_gill »

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…

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

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

#34

Post by aerique »

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…

I think the main problem isn't the quality of the system of measurement used by the US, but more that it is one of only three countries still not using the metric system.

The world would be an easier place without that headache.

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

#35

Post by edvinbesic »

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…

As a European living in America I disagree. The one value of metric vs imperial is that you (for the most part) don't have to do any math when converting between units.

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.

However, 1.73 km is 1730 meters, which is way easier (at least for me, but that might be my bias).

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

#36

Post by edvinbesic »

manish_gill wrote: post #33
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…

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

Which is precisely the reason why the US military has adopted the metric system.

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

#37

Post by lunchbox »

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

"Germanic languages have special words for 11 and 12, such as eleven and twelve in English, which are often misinterpreted as vestiges of a duodecimal system. However, they are considered to come from Proto-Germanic ainlif and twalif (respectively one left and two left), both of which were decimal."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Origin

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

#38

Post by abgv »

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 parts of 12, or 6 parts of 10 minutes. This also means that if for example you want to divide a job in 3 shifts, every shift will be 8 hours, not 3,3333333 hours or similar, what you would get in a base10 system.

I mean, the stars and the gods and the tip or our fingers might be also a justification, but I think those were rationalized after the fact. I find it difficult that the guys that came with base12/60 didn't realize the particular properties of those numbers.

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

#39

Post by raldi »

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…

Similarly, people will claim it makes no sense that American M/D/Y dates are neither monotonically increasing nor decreasing, but then they'll find it totally natural to use "D/M/Y H:M:S" or "H:M:S D/M/Y" and not even notice that they share that same alleged flaw.
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