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| 2026-03-24 |
| [BBC] A mysterious 5,000-year-old decision led directly to how we still count time today. In October 1793, the newly established French Republic embarked on an ill-fated experiment. It decided to change time. The day, the revolutionaries decided, would now be divided by 10 hours, not 24. Each hour would have 100 minutes décimales in turn made up of 100 secondes décimales. The time system was part of a wider revolutionary calendar which aimed to rationalise (and de-Christianise) the years' structure, including a new 10-day week. Work soon began to convert existing clocks to the decimal system. Town halls mounted decimal clocks and official activities were recorded using the new calendar. It quickly began causing no end of headaches, says Finn Burridge, a science communicator at Royal Museums Greenwich in London, UK, home of the Royal Observatory and the place where Greenwich Meantime was established. Redesigning and converting existing clocks proved extremely tricky. The system isolated France from neighbouring countries, while the rural population hated the day of rest becoming only every 10th day. Ultimately, decimal time lasted barely more than a year in France. To understand how we started counting, and still count today, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute, though, we need to wind the clock back to an era before the dawn of timekeeping. Because it's the story of one of the earliest number systems that started us off on this track – and explains why this awkward system has long outlived the civilisations who invented it. A BASE OF 60 At the origin are the Sumerians, an ancient people who lived in Mesopotamia (roughly modern-day Iraq) from around 5300-1940BC and one of the first civilisations to ever form cities. Along with many other inventions including irrigation and the plough, they are credited with creating the first known writing system. This happened to include a number system based on the concept of 60. Hold up your hand in front of you, bend a finger, and you'll see it has three joints. Count all the joints on the fingers of one hand (not including the thumb) and you'll reach 12. Count this 12 as one using a finger on your other hand and restart the count to 12 on the first hand, until all five fingers on your second hand are used. What have you just counted to? Sixty. This is one of the speculative theories as to why the Sumerians based their emerging mathematical system on 60, not 10 – a decision that still has implications for how we measure time today. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
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| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-03-24 16:25 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2026-03-24 12:54 |