this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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What's the time, Mr Wolf? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago (3 children)

https://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2022/09/21/timing-is-everything-why-24-hours-to-day-and-60-minutes-to-hour/69503622007/

By 1,500 BCE, Egyptians were using sundials to divide the period of daylight into 12 segments. One explanation for their choice of 12 comes from their recognition there are about 12 lunar cycles (new moon to new moon) per year, which is also the reason most early cultures divided the year into 12 or 13 lunar months of 354 or 384 days.

A more entertaining possibility suggests 12 stemmed from the number of joints on the four (non-thumb) fingers of one hand.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

12 is also a pleasing number in how many ways it can be evenly divided into equal groups.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not suuper useful for time though, honestly

Would be nicer if we had an overall base-12 number system

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If we had a base 10 hour system, how would you split it into three shifts?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

6 hours 40 minutes?
7 hours with a 20 minute lunch?
I dunno, we'd make it work lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You just divide 10 by 3. That's elementary school math.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A more entertaining possibility suggests 12 stemmed from the number of joints on the four (non-thumb) fingers of one hand.

Well now I'm conscious of all the joints in my non-thumb fingers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can easily count to 12 with just one hand, and you can count to 60 with both hands, in the babylonian style, by using the finger segments.