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who decided and why:
why there are 24 hours in a day
60 minutes in an hour
60 seconds to a minute

2006-06-30 03:37:41 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Mathematics

7 answers

The english came up with the seconds and minutes thing.

A "minute" is a "minute fraction" (1/60) of an hour. 60 was chosen for being easily divisible into two, three, four, five, and six parts. A "second" is a "second minute fraction" of an hour (1/60*1/60 = 1/3600).

I believe that the romans were the first to use a system of 24 hours. 24 was selected, again, for being easily divisible into two, three, four, and six parts.

2006-06-30 03:46:55 · answer #1 · answered by Argon 3 · 6 0

This timescale goes a bit farther back than the English... The credit goes to the Sumerians, who used base 60 to calculate time. They just didn't call it "hours", "minutes", and "seconds". In that case, it would be the english. But of course, the romans decided on the 24 hours.

2006-06-30 05:49:23 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

I'll tackle the hours part. In Roman times, the day and night were defined by divisions of ten, with dawn and dusk having two divisions each (one associated with day, the other with night). This resulted in twenty-four divisions in a solar day. Keep in mind that this meant that the hour was variable as a day hour would be longer in the summer and shorter in the winter, with night hours being the reverse. It would be only later that the hour was standardised to be 1/24th of a solar day (time between two high noons).

2006-06-30 04:18:32 · answer #3 · answered by Ѕємι~Мαđ ŠçїєŋŧιѕТ 6 · 0 0

I don't know who chose those measurements, but I do know the choices weren't arbitrary. Those numbers were chosen because they have many factors and thus are easy to divide into halves, thirds, quarters, etc.

There are 360 degrees in the circle for the same reason.

2006-06-30 03:46:55 · answer #4 · answered by mathsmart 4 · 0 0

Initially, in some civilisations, they used sexagesimal system for counting as well. The same civilisations must have used the system for mesurement of time. We need to go through history.

2006-06-30 03:55:33 · answer #5 · answered by K N Swamy 3 · 0 0

Quantitative pertains to numerical documents (numbers). that's obvious, concise and could be actually displayed as graphs and so on. Qualitative pertains to nominal documents (words). it fairly is the selection of documents gained by using huge interview or different such procedures. that's much less concise and not as trouble-free to analyze. besides the fact that, it components richer, greater particular counsel.

2016-12-14 03:09:59 · answer #6 · answered by lipskar 4 · 0 0

You can blame the Babylonians.

2006-06-30 04:06:46 · answer #7 · answered by Nerdly Stud 5 · 0 0

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