Saturday, September 19, 2020

Base 60

I think 60 may have been thought of as a convenient number to use for a base number notational system because it has quite a few factors. Thus it may have been thought of as a useful number as it may have made doing operations such as division and multiplication easier, as there are many factors to choose from. 

Factors of 60: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60.

Where as, the number 10 has much fewer factors. 

Factors of 10: 1, 2, 5, 10

Because of the smaller number of factors in 10, it may have seemed like a less useful number to use for a base. Given that our learning was done through a base 10 system, it seems like a more convenient and useful base to me as I find the factors of 10 to be easy to use in mathematical operations. 


It is interesting to look at the significance of the number 60 now in our daily lives. Given that there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, we rely heavily on the number 60 in our everyday lives, especially in terms of time. 


Given the research that I have done, it is believed that 60 was chosen as the base, given it is the smallest number divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, making it easier to express fractions. By using 60 as the base it also allowed for the use of a formula to conduct multiplication, only having to know the squares, instead of using times tables. Today the base 60 system is still used to measure geographic coordinates and angles. As well, our system of time comes from the base 60 Babylonian numeration system. 


Lombardi, M. A. (March 5, 2007). Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/#:~:text=The%20Babylonians%20made%20astronomical%20calculations,the%20first%20six%20counting%20numbers 

Gill, N.S. (July 3, 2009). Babylonian Mathematics and the Base 60 System. Thought Co. https://www.thoughtco.com/why-we-still-use-babylonian-mathematics-116679 



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