Author Name: BoingBoing
       This story was originally published on Boingboing.net. [1]
       License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.[2]


Why 'time' uses the sexagesimal system of counting
Date: 2021-08-04 00:00:00

Wonder where we got the sexagesimal system? 60 seconds seems awful unwieldy in our world of base 10.

It's the Sumerians.

Someone on Reddit's ELI5 forum asked:

"Why do we hit a limit of 60 for seconds and minutes, but then decimal for hours and milliseconds?"

and the answer is very cool:

If the Reddit thread doesn't explain it as you like, try Wikipedia.


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