Science Memes

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Or we could do metric time (files.catbox.moe)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I hate the idea of metric time (for a lot of use cases metric is still awesome).

12 and 60 can be easily divided by 2, 3, 4, 6. 60 also by 5 and 10. Even for 8 it's still kind of easy.

For 10 or 100 division is easy for 2, 5 and 10 and okay-ish for 4.

The 12/60 (and 360 degrees of a circle) are such an elegant system!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

We should "just" switch to base-6 (or maybe 12) first

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AFAIK the system goes back to the old Babylonians who had a base-60 system subdivided into 5 times 12. 5 times 12 could easily be counted using your thumb to count the 12 knuckles on the other fingers and the 5 fingers of the other hand.

I mean, how amazing is counting like that! I only learned to count to 10 with my fingers. I love the base-10 for its simplicity but base-60, subbase-12 is the shit :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Even easier and more comfortable - count the pads instead of the knuckles. You can count to 12 with one hand, or 144 with two

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

You are right! English is not my first language and I thought I was talking about the pads. My bad! Yours is the best way!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If only we had 6 digits per hand as standard, basic maths would be so much easier for everyone

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

We do, base 12 comes from 5 fingers and a fist. It was used by traders for the longest time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

makes sense in a world without much fractions or the decimal system. You want to get the most divisors for your buck.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

IMHO especially in a setting like time where fractions are very common (like "half an hour"), being able to represent fractions with whole numbers is very convenient.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Get better at math and theres no problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Thank you ! Last time I tried to explain this on Lemmy, I wrote my longest comment ever. I'm gonna use you much better explanation next time.