Wednesday, 13 September 2023

Blog Post 3: Why based 60?

 When thinking about why Babalonian’s would use base 60 instead of base 10, I wondered if it might have to do with time (60 seconds, 60 minutes…). I also thought it would be convenient since it’s an even number which makes it easy to divide. Similarly to what we discussed in class, it could have to do with geometry (360 degrees in a circle). 


Through google, I found my predictions pretty reasonable. I read that babylonians came up with the concept of time being 24 hours, 60 minutes and 60 seconds, so base 60 would make perfect sense. I also read that some ancient groups used base 5 while others used base 12 so 60 became a common factor. Like what I speculated, some attributed base 60 to the fact that it is convenient for fractions.


2 comments:

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  2. Hi Jasmine, nice connection between your speculation and research. How might you engage with these bases (5, 10, 12, or 60) in your own studies and work?

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