Why are there only 60 seconds in a minute?

Answer 1

It relates all to history. The time sections are based off of the ancient babylonian number system, which is in base 60. The babylonians also set their time that way because it is in their culture and belief system. So, come time to decide our own time system, the "experts" said "well, the babylonians used it and it works for them, so we'll copy them and it'll work for us." And that is why there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.

Answer 2

I believe it was the ancient Greeks who began measuring time as we perceive it today through the use of sun dials, which broke the day into 12 hourly segments, and thus the night equally into 12 hourly segments.

This reliance on the sun though posed a problem for ancient monks who prayed at regular intervals.

When the water clock was perfected (mind you, it had been around for many centruies prior to it's perfection by, I believe, Leonardo DiVinci, but here I could be wrong) the concept was to measure hours, not minutes and seconds, yet it was so accurate that it was found that such minute measurements could indeed be made.

There were 60 drops per minute and 360 drops per hour, thus seconds and minutes came to be.

Answer 3

i_amswift is right. the ancient greeks used the babylonian number system to do astronomical calculations, so they ended up dividing hours into 60 minutes and they divided minutes into 60 seconds. why did the babylonians use base 60?
because it's pretty easy to write fractions in base 60. if you try to write 1/3 in base 10, you get .3333333333333333 (and so on and so forth), but if you use base 60, you get .20.

Answer 4

the earth spins at 365.25 revs per calender year (12 months ) now we can fit 365.25 days in this year @24 hrs per day , which we can fit 24 x 60 minutes= 24 hrs broken down still ,
we can obtain exactly 60 minutes in any one single hour eg: 60 mins = one hour yet again we can obtain exactly 60 seconds in any one minute to the value of 60 before it becomes an hour.

eg:60 mins = 1hour 24 hours = 24x60 mins 365.25days x 24x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = your answer.

now ive got a headache lol.

remember its a case of our 1 minute coinciding with our whole seasons eg:12 months cycle, i agree with the time issue being invented , however "time is relative"

Answer 5

OK, so much for history, but we are big boys now. Why do we not divide the day into 20 hrs, the hour into 100 minutes and the minute into 100 seconds?Why must we be slaves to the past?

Americans and other primitives who still use gallons, barrels and bushels, need not reply.

Answer 6

I think it has something to do with the Babylonians. Their system of math was base-60.

Answer 7

Because on Ancient sundials they made 60 graduated marks and because it worked well, we never abandoned it.

Answer 8

Because people decided it would be...there is really no such thing as time we just mde it so we can keep track of things.

Answer 9

To make you ask pointless qustions on yahoo answers.

Answer 10

that is just the way God made it duhhh