why are there sixty minutes in one hour?

Question

help

Answer 1

Because the ancient Babylonians used a base-60 number system, and we picked up some of our measurement systems from them.

Answer 2

This all dates back to the Ancient Babylonians who liked to count in base 60. Ratios of 6, 12, 60, and 360 were seen by them as being 'round' numbers in the same way that we use base 10 and see 5, 10, 100 etc as useful numbers to divide things up into.

See: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/ HistTopics/Babylonian_and_Egyptian.html

The Babylonians divided the sky into the 12 signs of the Zodiac, and a circle into 360 degrees. They divided the day and night each into 12 hours (although in many time systems the lengths of these varied between summer and winter! Babylon was rather nearer the equator than Liverpool, so they didn't get too confused with this). The hour was split into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds.

All these numbers have survived for 4000 years, despite the fact that we have changed our numbering system to base 10! In England, when I was young, we still measured with feet, each divided into 12 inches. The Americans still do! [By the way, do you know where the mile comes from? It's Roman, not Babylonian!]

The year is nearly 360 days long and the Babylonians split it into 12 months. Other civilizations based their calendar on the moon and had 13 months. We still have problems with this today because Easter is based on the lunar calendar and migrates around the Julian calendar in a complex way. Chinese new year is still based on the Lunar calendar.

If you don't like base 60 time, try this webpage for a man who thinks we should go decimal!

http:// members.tripod.com/~zoam/metrictime.html

The babylonians thought 60 was the perfect number as it was divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5!

Answer 3

wow great question. i wonder that my seld sometimes.
The distance between the two numbers is equal to Five minutes.

The distance between 12 and 3 is 3 x 5 = 15 minutes.

The distance between 12 and 6 is 6 x 5 = 30 minutes.

The distance between 12 and 9 is 9 x 5 = 45 minutes.

It means when minute hand goes from 12 to 1 it takes 5 minutes, from 12 to 6 it takes 30 minutes.

When Minute Hand completes the whole circle it takes 12 x 5 = 60 minutes or One hour.

Answer 4

if there were sixty-one the day would be twenty-four minutes longer and if there were fifty-nine the day would be twenty-four minutes shorter. in either case, within a few months, we'd get to the point in which rush hour and the broadcast of "jeopardy" would occur at three o'clock in the morning, which would interfere with many people's beauty sleep. therefore, we as a species compromise with sixty.

Answer 5

Because 1 minute is the first division of an hour, and that is a division of 60.

So the second division (of the minute) was also 60 - thus, 60 seconds in a minute.

Answer 6

bcoz there is 1 hour in 60 minutes

Answer 7

2 interlinked reasons:

mathmatically, it's the best way to divide a day into discreet portions of time and retain an easy to interpret method that uneducated people can understand

practically, it's the best way to divide a circle (360deg) in a way that artisans and craftsmen of old with their imprecise equiptment can represent those discreet portions of time in a day

Answer 8

because there are 30 minutes in a half hour

Answer 9

Was gonna say basically what clare P said but she's already done all the work for me. give her the points she's been pretty informative there.

Answer 10

Because that's how whoever decided how time would be measured decided to measure it.