[time-nuts] SI Unit Problems

Jim Lux jimlux at earthlink.net
Wed Apr 6 13:19:37 UTC 2011


On 4/5/11 7:38 PM, Greg Broburg wrote:
> The number 6 and derivations thereof were presented
> to the world of science from the numerologists. Time
> was arranged as parts of a day, 24 hours 60 minutes
> per hour 60 seconds per minute. Very tenuous at best.
> I propose that we consider 100 seconds in a minute,
> 100 minutes in an hour, and 10 hours in a day. People
> could handle that with an IPhone ap, right?

Then there's the Babylonians, who used a number system where 60 was 
important.  60 has lots of factors, which makes dividing things up into 
equal sized chunks easy.  (as my daughter said when much younger, and 
doing fractions in math, "curse those Babylonians").

The fact that a year is about 360 days long (6*60) also feeds into it.

You really needed the invention and adoption of place value for a 
decimalized system to work well, and that didn't come along til around 
700-800 C.E., I think.  By then, the fractional measurement approach and 
customary units were well entrenched.  Sure, although  King John 
standardized the yard and inch and pound and such in the 1200s, I'm sure 
that the units themselves were already in use for a long time.  Currency 
is also done in a fractional system (pieces o'eight, 12pence/shilling 
with ha'pennies to boot)

The French *did* have a decimalized calendar (and time, too, I think).




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