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

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

#81

Post by edvinbesic »

thesis wrote: post #62
edvinbesic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Wait... you're comparing feet to meters. When you should be comparing meters to yards. 1.73 miles * 1760 yards.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to compare units, and the whole example is a bit contrived tbh. The point was simply that in the metric system, when converting between units, all you need to do is move the decimal point, no math required.

This doesn't mean metric is more accurate over imperial, it just means that on a day-to-day, conversion is easier. Also, you can work out the relationship of units simply by their name.

deci = tenth, so decimeters means there is ten of them in one meter. deciliters means ten in one liter. so on and so forth. centi = hundred... milli = thousand...

etc.

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

#82

Post by vadman »

raldi wrote: post #74
rmk2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They" really don't. Either way you described is still either sorted in ascending or descending order: H:M:S D/M/Y (321 123) or D/M/Y H:M:S (123 321), as opposed to using MDY, which is neither ascending nor descending, but 213. Additionally, the point of doing it the other way round is that the most important thing is on the left , where we start reading, followed by less important things. If I need to know the time…

> 321 123 I think you mean 321 456. It's not monotonically anything. > most important thing is on the left See, I feel that the month is the most important part of the date. "My birthday’s in June" or "My birthday is on the eight of some month"? "The harvest is in October" or "The harvest is on the 30th of something?"

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.

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

#83

Post by vadman »

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.

I can hardly think of a situation where a centigrade is not granular enough. The example GP gives with the air conditioner is IMHO a huge stretch - a 1 deg Celsius difference is pretty negligible. Disclaimer: Fahrenheit is the most annoying and nonsensical of imperial measurement scales to me, so I am biased against it.

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

#84

Post by Mikeb85 »

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.

But it's much easier and quicker to simply weigh your ingredients on a digital scale. Step into a professional kitchen and you'll never see anyone using measuring spoons or cups...

Not to mention, having everything in metric and by weight allows you to easily figure out ratios of ingredients, making scaling recipes much easier and quicker.

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

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

zb wrote: post #60
fjcaetano wrote: post #45

>The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes (who lived circa 276 to 194 B.C.) used a sexagesimal system to divide a circle into 60 parts in order to devise an early geographic system of latitude, with the horizontal lines running through well-known places on the earth at the time. A century later, Hipparchus normalized the lines of latitude, making them parallel and obedient to the earth's geometry. He also devised a system o…

First of all, Columbus rediscovered America a good century before Galileo. Secondly, the idea that people believed in a flat earth before Columbus is entirely a 19th Century conceit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Geographi... In fact, the fact that the earth is (essentially) spherical was well-known to basically everybody since ancient times. For example, any sailor could have told you that when…

> First of all, Columbus rediscovered America a good century before Galileo.

Well, "encountered" would probably be more accurate. Discovery -- even rediscovery -- requires recognition, and Columbus insisted he had reached the East Indies.

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

#86

Post by kps »

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…

  > when I build things it's useful to divide in half a few times
Fahrenheit adjusted his earlier scale, changing from 30° to 32° for freezing, and 90° to 96° for body temperature, in order to simplify constructing thermometers by bisecting between the calibration points.

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

#87

Post by js2 »

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 someone who bakes, I loathe imperial measurements. For one, measuring by weight instead of volume is just much easier and more precise. (I'm looking at you "cups of flour.") For two, it's a lot simpler to scale recipes given in metric amounts.

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

#88

Post by wikwocket »

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…

On the topic of metric vs. otherwise, you may enjoy Matt Parker's "Guide to the Imperial Measurement System." [0] Matt Parker is an eminent stand-up mathematician, often featured on James May's excellent Number Hub series

0: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7x-RGfd0Yk

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

#89

Post by bostonpete »

zanny wrote: post #43
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…

In theory I'd prefer a timekeeping system that had its base unit in terms of the smallest discrete unit of time (basically planck time) and let everything else arise naturally from that. Sure, days may not be a perfectly XX kilo-mega-ultra-plank times (I'm unsure of the Metric nomenclature going from a power of -44 to a power of around +4) but I am always peeved we have designed our timekeeping, temperature, pressure…

Does it also peeve you that the decimal system is based on the number of fingers we have? I can only assume you're being facetious -- I can't see any practical reason for wanting a system of measurements that isn't designed around the world we all live in.

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

#90

Post by raldi »

vadman wrote: post #82
raldi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 321 123 I think you mean 321 456. It's not monotonically anything. > most important thing is on the left See, I feel that the month is the most important part of the date. "My birthday’s in June" or "My birthday is on the eight of some month"? "The harvest is in October" or "The harvest is on the 30th of something?"

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?
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