However, it is difficult to work with prime numbers bigger than 5 in the base 60 Babylonian number system.
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Interesting. I can understand humans using a base 10 system. Wonder how the Babylonians arrived at using a base 60 system.
It took them two months...................
60’s pretty handy, imagine dividing the spoils of war, the inheritance in a large family, or the grain on a farm evenly by 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 recipients.
Dead simple in base 60.
We have no trouble thinking of a quarter hour as 15 minutes, although we don’t actually think of it, we just know it.
It is angle related. A circle is 360 degrees but you can think about it in minutes in seconds as well. So, if due north is 00:00 then due south is 30:30. Northeast is 07:30.
I do not know when it became time related.
Its why we have 60 minutes in an hour—and not 100.
Its why we have 60 minutes in an hour—and not 100.
Its why we have 60 minutes in an hour—and not 100.
Wonder how the Babylonians arrived at using a base 60 system.
How did they arrive at base 60? I don’t know, but consider that 1 times 2 times 3 times 4 times 5 = 120.
So maybe it is somehow taken from 3 times 4 times 5.
The ancients were not all some dumbos. I am sure further amazing discoveries are only waiting for some advanced civilization to discover.
Something about the degrees in a circle, I think I heard somewhere.