Yep, it would have made more sense for them. Still no reason for us to use it :) I think I said earlier that 360 is an HCN, but evenly divisible by one's base unit tends to be more convenient than being an HCN, especially for rapid calculation.
There are a few more reasons that 360 did make sense, but in this day and age it is completely arbitrary. There are plenty of historical reasons to use 360, but none of them apply any more. On Mar 13, 8:24 pm, Lucky <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Will et al > You may find this pertinent: "...One might wonder why the Babylonians > chose the number 360. The > reason is that their number system was based on the number 60. To > compare, we base our number system on 10. For us, 10 is a nice, round > number and we find it very convenient to count in multiples of 10, > like millimeter, centimeter, meter, kilometer, etc. But the > Babylonians liked 60. > > Why this was nice for them, nobody knows, but 60 is a nice number > too, > because 60 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 5 and 360 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 5. What's so > neat about that, you ask? Well, you will find that 360 is divisible > by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20. There are few other > numbers as small as 360 that have so many different factors. This > makes the degree a very nice unit to divide the circle into an equal > number of parts. 120 degrees is 1/3 of a circle, 90 degrees is 1/4, > and so on" > (http://mathforum.org) > > 360 is certainly not an arbitrary figure conjured for the fun of it > but extremely well thought out, there are also (approximately) 360 > days in a year (time it takes the Earth to circle the sun, I'm sure > that did not go unnoticed by our ancestors, the stars which circle the > celestial pole every day, seem to advance in that circle by > approximately one-360th of a circle, i.e., one degree, each day. I > seem to remember trigonometry and 'chords' also being relevant, > (Ptolemy?) using traditional sexagesimal unit subdivision one degree > is divided into 60 minutes (of arc), and one minute into 60 seconds > (of arc) > > So if a circle is going to be divided into 360 'parts' it must have > made sense to divide a clock (They used to be round till we started on > 'em) into the same i.e 60 mins\60 secs. 360 also has 24 divisors inc > every number from one to ten except 7 > I'm know there is more to it than that, worth a Google, but certainly > the divisors we use are not arbitrary. > > Dave. > > On 13 Mar, 23:40, will <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > That argument is circular (no pun intended)... one system makes sense > > because it depends on another system, and that system makes sense > > because it depends on the first system, etc. > > The clocks could have easily been made to tell time in units of 1000 > > (ie 1/1000th of a day), and have, say, 10 hours instead of 12. It's > > like metric vs SI-what's simpler, 1000, 100, 10, 1, etc., or 60, 60, > > 24, 7, 12 (or more like 24, 365.24). > > > There are only 360 degrees in a circumference because we felt like > > saying there were, but there's no reason not to use the obvious unit > > of "turns", "milliturns", "microturns". > > > On Mar 13, 6:27 pm, Charles MacDonald <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 11-03-13 01:37 PM, will wrote: > > > > > It's still pretty ridiculous. > > > > > I'm of the opinion that we should do a complete overhaul of our units > > > > and measurement system, including time. Seconds, minutes, and hours > > > > are now totally arbitrary and have zero practical meaning. > > > > I am sure that the way time is measured had a direct relation to how > > > ship navigation was accomplished, as the first really accurate clocks > > > were made for this purpose. > > > > There are 360 degrees in a circumference. And I hate to think what a > > > clock would look like if it had started in Radians. > > > > -- > > > Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario > > > [email protected] Just Beyond the > > > Fringehttp://www.TelecomOttawa.net/~cmacd/ > > > No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
