How did we wind up measuring time as 60 sec, 60 min, 24 hrs? Why not 100 sec, 100 min, 10 hours?

Answer 1

That's a very good question. The choices weren't actually arbitrary. What the numbers 60 and 24 have in common is that they both have a lot of factors. This makes it easy to talk about not just a half hour, but also a quarter of an hour, a third of an hour, a fifth or a twelfth of an hour...

Another number that was chosen for it's number of factors is the number of degrees in a circle: 360.

Answer 2

This goes back several 1000 years to the Babylonians who liked to divide the daylight hours into 12 hours. Groups of 12 are also dividable into halves, thirds and fourths. Originally, one hour was one-twelfth of the the time between sunrise and sunset. Later on when people also wanted to be able to tell the time at night, it was natural to also divide the night into 12 hours thus making a whole day to have 24 hours.
The hour was also divided up into 60 minutes with the modern invention the the clock in the 13th century, and the minute was divided into 60 seconds when mechanical clocks became more accurate.

Answer 3

The Babylonians gave us this system, (perhaps inherited from the Sumerians) and it stuck.

There are *many* really interesting theories (see links under source) about why the Babylonians used a base-60 system for astronomy, geometry (e.g. 360 degrees in a circle), and some other (but not all) numerical tasks. It's not as simple as an approximation of 365 days in a year (they had a very accurate knowlege of the number of days in a year).

Answer 4

It is an interesting question and one that is vexing lots of people.

As you rightly point out, the alternative to decimalise time would make it far easier to understand. This proposal is currently being looked at and discussed by industry, UN and the EEC. Whilst current estimates for the change run into billions, it is felt that there would be major benefits in teaching children to tell time, the international transfer of time information, and, importantly computer calculations which would drop the price of computing across he globe and cause an explosion in global free trade.

Major changes would be required, for instance speed limits would have to change as whilst speed is a constant it's expression in miles an hour would change. The full ramifications are still being explored however a new web site, part information & part consultation will probably be launched soon. It is expected to follow this up with closed test environment before a proof-of-concept in the field.

Optamistic plans are for a proof-of-concept change to Deci-time in Arkansas in 2020. Not only is this area easier to contain it also has a greater percentage of the population with difficulties in grasping the current time-telling and other baisc skills. The experiement would be expected to run for 5 years before being extended to Luxembourg in Europe.

Full change over would then take place betwen 2030 and 2040; timing being critcal to global trade and the first manned flight to Mars.

The G7 conference agreed in principle to set aside the funds to support the change in third world Nations this would be repaid as a loan once the expected boom in global trade takes place.

The first maned flight to Mars is already being built with new revolutionary computers calculating in Deci-time. These computers, because of the simplified timing, are up to 50 times faster than their normal-time counterparts, and run at far lower temperatures making super conductivity a real possibility in the cold of space.

It is an interesting point you have raised which is now at the very edge of technical thinking.

Answer 5

Because 24 hours is the approimate time it takes the moon to ttravel around the Earth. 24 breaks down into even structures when divided by 6. It does not break down evenly when divided 10.

Answer 6

I believe the reason why they decided on 60 as a base number is because it is divisible by many numbers less than that and therefore easily divided into half-hours and quarter-hours and such.

Answer 7

it all started with the length of a year...then they decided the difference between day and night...then came the sundial, so factors of 360 were used....lots and lots of factors were involved

Answer 8

because Father Time said it should be like that

Answer 9

365.25 days in one year.

There's your starting point.

Answer 10

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