Friday, May 30, 2008

Why?

Why we have such a metric system of time: 60 seconds for a minute, 60 minutes to an hr, 24 hrs and 365 days? Why 60 only of all the numbers?

Have you ever wondered? Why we are never taught the why part? Why havent i questioned it so far?
Bill Waterson said : "The surest sign that life exists outside Earth is that they have not tried to contact us"?

With such an obscure terminology, metrics and funde, i started to believe him.

Thanks to internet, i can find an answer every time i have a question.

The importance of 60 comes from the Babylonians used a base 60 number system as compared to our base 10 system. 60 and 6x60 = 360 were very natural numbers for them to work with. They used a 360 (6X60) day calendar as opposed to our 365 day calendar. The ancient astronomers would have noticed that it takes 365 days for the sun to move (about our fixed Earth) past the stars that appeared to be fixed to an external heavenly sphere, and return to where they started. The choice of 360 days for a year may have been a compromise between a 365 day solar year and a 354 day lunar year, (consisting of 12 months of 29.5 days each).

Source : http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.01/andy1.html

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