[Publius]

The sexagesimal system never made much sense for people who had five fingers on each hand. But if the Sumerians were taught math by ET visitors who had six fingers on each hand...

[BenLurkin]

I guess apparently a sexagesimal system does makes sense — if someone is trying to build an accurate trigonometric table. Even without aliens.

[lefty-lie-spy]

>> The sexagesimal system never made much sense for people who had five fingers on each hand. But if the Sumerians were taught math by ET visitors who had six fingers on each hand...

60/5 = 12
360/60 = 6
60/12 = 5

They did have a logic to the system, but clearly the metric system turned out to be much more comprehensible.

Here’s more: https://youtu.be/R9m2jck1f90

There are tons of great information on the history of mathematics at your fingertips. I found this book extremely awesome, A History Of Pi by Petr Beckmann - https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=10jABQAAQBAJ.

[shibumi]

"The sexagesimal system never made much sense for people who had five fingers on each hand. But if the Sumerians were taught math by ET visitors who had six fingers on each hand..."

[Moonman62]

The sexagesimal system never made much sense for people who had five fingers on each hand. But if the Sumerians were taught math by ET visitors who had six fingers on each hand...

...

60 is a highly composite number and is very convenient for making astronomical calculations. They were very good at predicting eclipses, too.

[smileyface]

Ah yes,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uJsoZheTR4