Why is time so weird?

[LinktheDeme]

I was wondering if I should make this in spam or not but I think this is a decent discussion question. I've been wondering why is time base 60 instead of out of 100?

[Qalbert]

Because sundials/clocks are round and 360 is not evenly divisible by 100.

[Murdock]

what is 10 and 10?

numbers

[Cephius]

Its actually pretty simple

Touch your thumb to the base of your index finger. That's 1. Now go up a notch. That's 2. Go to your fingerprint. That's 3. Continue on for the rest of your hand, that's 12. Make a thumbs up on your other hand, to indicate one set. 5 sets of 12 is 60. That's how people counted in ancient Sumer, where scientists believe that the concept of hours came from. Base 12 math.

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/010226.html

[SephYuyX]

It's pretty much like someone saying "How did people live with just a radio (or no radio at all)? Because during that time, it's what worked. They wernt able to see into the future and say, hey, 100 is a pretty cool number to use.

[Siniroth]

Time is like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff

[Qalbert]

Time is like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff

i love you
no homo

[LinktheDeme]

It's pretty much like someone saying "How did people live with just a radio (or no radio at all)? Because during that time, it's what worked. They wernt able to see into the future and say, hey, 100 is a pretty cool number to use.

But the mayians were able to read into the future D:

also that counting concept is pretty neato i think i might count like that from now on

[Mizango]

This is a relativity good question.

[zoobernut]

This is a relativity good question.

Har har Fonzy.

[Jefe]

Back in the days, the mean solar second was defined: (1/60)(1/60)(1/24), of a mean solar day.

Nowadays however, a second is taken from cesium atom and it's something insane, like 9x10^9 periods of vibrations per sec.

[Julian]

Time is like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff

GDI SINI I WAS GOING TO POST THAT

[Mojo]

The question you really should be asking is why do we use base 10 for mostly everything else.

[Chun Liroy]

I love that man.

[Siniroth]

The question you really should be asking is why do we use base 10 for mostly everything else.

I'm not sure if I'm getting wooshed, I always thought it was cause converting between different tiers of units was just moving the decimal place and it was easier for most people than remembering all the other little conversions, I could be wrong, I tend to go with whatever's more common for the relevant measurement

[Mojo]

That perception exists because you've been raised to think in sets of ten. Moving the decimal place around to change the 'tier', as you call it, is not restricted to base ten. The way you perceive numbers that makes you think that. The most likely answer to the question is that humans naturally have ten digits and counting with our digits is convenient.

[Kuya]

Its actually pretty simple

Touch your thumb to the base of your index finger. That's 1. Now go up a notch. That's 2. Go to your fingerprint. That's 3. Continue on for the rest of your hand, that's 12. Make a thumbs up on your other hand, to indicate one set. 5 sets of 12 is 60. That's how people counted in ancient Sumer, where scientists believe that the concept of hours came from. Base 12 math.

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/010226.html

Max would disagree, the origin of numbers is not our very own digits, but the universe itself. All praise the holy numbers.

edit: origin of hours.

[Shiroikage]

Clearly no one has heard of metric time.
It never caught on.

[Rocl]

That perception exists because you've been raised to think in sets of ten. Moving the decimal place around to change the 'tier', as you call it, is not restricted to base ten. The way you perceive numbers that makes you think that. The most likely answer to the question is that humans naturally have ten digits and counting with our digits is convenient.

http://whatthecrap.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/dude.jpg

[dudeguy]

time should be recorded on a weird-number base system