Why is time so weird?

[ZarakiKujata]

everything you need to know about time is contained within.

[Kumbai]

Doesn't it date back to like the Aztecs? Pretty sure I read somewhere about how they had hour glasses/sundials/all that jazz. The French tried making a 100 second minute but it never took off~

[Khamsin]

Doesn't it date back to like the Aztecs? Pretty sure I read somewhere about how they had hour glasses/sundials/all that jazz. The French tried making a 100 second minute but it never took off~

They probably just got bored waiting for 100 seconds, and just decided to go with 60.

[Guyverarmor]

They probably just got bored waiting for 100 seconds, and just decided to go with 60.

France? giving up? It's what they do best ! /suckerpunch

[Deadgye]

Uh? Why would you translate something into binaries or vice versa?

You wouldnt even save a lot of computing time, unless you are literally parsing millions of decimal per seconds

And the "saving space" argument is a bit ridiculous. Why not make base 16² instead, it would save even more space! I have nothing against base 16, and it would work just as well as base 10, I just don't see any real benefit over base 10

I'm a computer engineer in college, we have to do it a lot. XD (Usually by hand or in our head.) Translating binary to decimal and vice-versa really is a pain in the ass. When doing it to hex you can just look at every 4 bits. 110100111010 is C3A; it's so easy you can do it in your head. It's pretty much impossible to translate between decimal and the other 3 common bases in your head. (2,8, and 16)

You could use 256 base if you want to save space, but I really think that's pushing it. Can you even think of 256 different symbols to use? base 16 is a system that's already in use, and it doesn't really take much to remember that it goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f, 10, 11, etc. Remembering 256 different symbols would just be annoying. As to not seeing any advantage over base 10; what advantages of using base 10 are there over base 16? The only things it has going for it is that we're used to it and that we have 10 fingers.

It's not about the limit, it's about the base. It's base 12 math. Whether they actually counted to 60 or 144 is irrelevant, it still breaks down into being base 12 and explains the original question.

Erm.. not it doesn't. You're missing what I'm saying. The way you explained does not remain consistent, it's an illogical way of keeping count. The way counting works (going to use decimal since everyone is familiar with it.) is you start with nothing. You then increment the ones place until you go through all the symbols. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It's the same as 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09. Then you reset the ones place and increment the tens place. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and then increment it again to 20. It's how all counting systems work. So when keeping count if you're using a base 12 system using one hand why the hell would you, instead of using your other hand for the "tens" place, use it to create a completely different system of multiplication? Thus, they would show 60 not by holding up 5 fingers on one hand and touching their thumb to the tip of their pinky on the other; but by touching one hand to the middle of their middle finger and the other to the top of their pinky. I guess I'm just being anal with logic though, those were the days when they [s]wasted perfectly good[/s] sacrificed virgins to the gods.

Or just survive the zombie apocalypse and then you can teach the new world any form of math you want.

I'll just have to make sure I do that then! Once I get my computer set up I'll go get left4dead2 and train! :3

[Cephius]

Erm.. not it doesn't. You're missing what I'm saying. The way you explained does not remain consistent, it's an illogical way of keeping count. The way counting works (going to use decimal since everyone is familiar with it.) is you start with nothing. You then increment the ones place until you go through all the symbols. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It's the same as 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09. Then you reset the ones place and increment the tens place. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and then increment it again to 20. It's how all counting systems work. So when keeping count if you're using a base 12 system using one hand why the hell would you, instead of using your other hand for the "tens" place, use it to create a completely different system of multiplication? Thus, they would show 60 not by holding up 5 fingers on one hand and touching their thumb to the tip of their pinky on the other; but by touching one hand to the middle of their middle finger and the other to the top of their pinky. I guess I'm just being anal with logic though, those were the days when they [s]wasted perfectly good[/s] sacrificed virgins to the gods.

Who knows, maybe they found it easier to count how many sets of 12 they had by just holding up fingers instead of looking where their thumb was touching. I don't claim to have a degree in Anthropology but it seems to be the best explanation anyone's come up with so I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt.

[Kaylia]

I'm a computer engineer in college, we have to do it a lot. XD (Usually by hand or in our head.) Translating binary to decimal and vice-versa really is a pain in the ass. When doing it to hex you can just look at every 4 bits. 110100111010 is C3A; it's so easy you can do it in your head. It's pretty much impossible to translate between decimal and the other 3 common bases in your head. (2,8, and 16)

You could use 256 base if you want to save space, but I really think that's pushing it. Can you even think of 256 different symbols to use? base 16 is a system that's already in use, and it doesn't really take much to remember that it goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f, 10, 11, etc. Remembering 256 different symbols would just be annoying. As to not seeing any advantage over base 10; what advantages of using base 10 are there over base 16? The only things it has going for it is that we're used to it and that we have 10 fingers.

College is the only place where you will do it. They want you to understand the difference between base, and how you can change them. Actually, the only time I ever done it was in the first years of my major, when we were learning pc structure.

Unless I'm completely missing an obvious uses, you will be using your calculator, or a 10 line algorithm to translate from base 10 to base 2.

[Skjie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
Bring back Swatch Time!

[Deadgye]

College is the only place where you will do it. They want you to understand the difference between base, and how you can change them. Actually, the only time I ever done it was in the first years of my major, when we were learning pc structure.

Ah, but I've <3'd hex since before college. Taught it to myself, along with stuff like pointers when I was screwing around with ffxi in high school. For non-negative values of speed, character speed is 512*2^(x/12.5). :3 (Character stance uses the same pointer as character speed too, just a different offset.) That reminds me I need to teach myself assembly.

[Eratosthenes]

Are there even words that describe values in other number bases? For example, what is the word for the hexadecimal value 28? Twenty eight? Two sixteens and eight? Forty? All of those are base ten words.

[Kaylia]

Nope, we read it in decimal.

I'm not saying that no language was ever made to be read in hexadecimal, but none ever ended up being used.

[Dense]

You guys arguing about base 12, you're a bit off-base (har har har).

Blame the babylonians for the base60 math:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

One hour of time is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute is divided into 60 seconds. Thus, a measurement of time such as "3:23:17" (three hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds) can be interpreted as a sexagesimal number, meaning 3×602+23×601+17×600 seconds or equivalently 3×600+23×60−1+17×60−2 hours. As with the ancient Babylonian sexagesimal system, however, each of the three sexagesimal digits in this number (3, 23, and 17) are written using the decimal system.
Similarly, the practical unit of angular measure is the degree, of which there are 360 in a circle. There are 60 minutes of arc in a degree, and 60 seconds of arc in a minute.
In some usage systems, each position past the sexagesimal point was numbered, using Latin or French roots: prime or primus, seconde or secundus, tierce, quatre, quinte, etc. To this day we call the second-order part of an hour or of a degree a "second". In the 1700s, at least, 1/60 of a second was called a "tierce" or "third".

The basis of which is almost assuredly both geodectic and from the fact that 360 is very close to the number of sidereal days in an equinox year...

[Kaylia]

http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/...ylonia_nos.jpg


Base 60 must sucks to write.

[Obev]

Doesn't it date back to like the Aztecs? Pretty sure I read somewhere about how they had hour glasses/sundials/all that jazz. The French tried making a 100 second minute but it never took off~

The Aztecs only date back to like 1300, so no, not really.