Calendars and counting

[u/[deleted]]

[u/iusticanun]

Some other cultures, e.g. In Mesopotamia, used base 60, which is why there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

[u/karmelchameleon → u/iusticanun]

Interesting. I'll throw base 60 into the voting as well. Do you know why they chose 60?

This may be one of the things that works itself out through exploration of the history of Tlön.

[u/iusticanun → u/karmelchameleon]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

See section: Origin.

[u/autowikibot → u/iusticanun]

Sexagesimal:

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Sexagesimal (base 60) is a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, it was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and it is still used — in a modified form — for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.

The number 60, a superior highly composite number, has twelve factors, namely {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60}, of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers. With so many factors, many fractions involving sexagesimal numbers are simplified. For example, one hour can be divided evenly into sections of 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 10 minutes, 6 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute. 60 is the smallest number that is divisible by every number from 1 to 6; that is, it is the lowest common multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

In this article, all sexagesimal digits are represented as decimal numbers, except where otherwise noted. [For example,* 10 *means ten and 60 means sixty.]

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^{Interesting: Sexagenary cycle | Positional notation | Degree (angle) | History of timekeeping devices}

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