Eli5 why is time measured in base 12 and 60 when we generally use base 10 for everything else?
In: Other
The American non-metric systems frequently use numbering systems that aren’t base 10. Cooking comes to mind. Cups and ounces and gallons are often binary, or fractional. 3 teaspoons to a tablespoon, 3 tablespoons to a quarter cup, 2 cups to a pint, 8 pints in a gallon. 16 ounces in a pound. All of that stuff, and not a single 10 in sight.
Systems, including time, that *don’t* use base 10 usually evolved from a system where it’s easy to *divide* into equal parts. 12 is great for this because you can cut it in half not once, but twice, and you can cut the whole 12, *or* half of the 12 into halves *or thirds.* In the cooking example I used, pretty much everything except for the tablespoons and teaspoons is double or half, or some form of it. 8 pints in a gallon, as 8 can be halved 3 times. Also easy to note that a **lot** of foods and liquids in the home weigh *about* the same so that the old adage “A pint’s a pound the world around” usually holds true enough. Two cups (a pint) of most common ingredients is going to weigh about a pound.
**TLDR** 12 divides very easily, which makes it convenient for domestic use where a very fine degree of accuracy isn’t required, but ease of use is.
Latest Answers