• Squirrel@thelemmy.club
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Why hasn’t the Metric world found a better way? I want a clock based around multiples of 10, dammit!

    • mlfh@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      78
      ·
      1 year ago

      One benefit of base 12 and base 60 over base 10 for everyday use with things like time is simple factorization. You can divide 12 hours evenly into halves, thirds, quarters, and sixths, and 60 minutes evenly into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths, tenths, etc. With base 10, you’ve just got halves and fifths.

      • kvn@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        1 year ago

        Another benefit of base 12 is that you can count to 12 easily with one hand by using your thumb to count each of the 3 segments on your 4 fingers.

        I learned that on that other website prior to the great migration and it blew my mind then.

      • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I know all about that, but I don’t think we’ll convince people to change everything to base 12, so let’s go with a base 10 clock.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          25
          ·
          1 year ago

          A base-10 unit circle would be abhorrent. 1/2 of a circle is an important concept, but 1/5th and 1/10th of a circle are rarely used in geometry or trigonometry. Meanwhile, a right angle (1/4 of a circle) would require an ugly fraction, and the angle of an equilateral triangle (1/6th) would require a repeating decimal.

          Think of 12-hour clocks and 360-degree circles as paper bags. When we’re fucking with angular concepts, you do not want to take those bags off Decimal’s head.

    • mlc894@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      Some people briefly tried that during the French Revolution, but it never caught on.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s extremely elegant. Plus if you have days of rest every first, fifth and tenth day of the week then you have 3 or 4 days of work in a row at a time (of course im sure at the time they were far more stingy with days of rest)

      • SpooneyOdin@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        There is a logical reason why numbers like 12, 24, and 60 are used in a lot of systems. They are highly composite numbers so they have lots of prime factors which means there are lots more options to break them into whole groups.