By 1,500 BCE, Egyptians were using sundials to divide the period of daylight into 12 segments. One explanation for their choice of 12 comes from their recognition there are about 12 lunar cycles (new moon to new moon) per year, which is also the reason most early cultures divided the year into 12 or 13 lunar months of 354 or 384 days.
A more entertaining possibility suggests 12 stemmed from the number of joints on the four (non-thumb) fingers of one hand.
12 is also a pleasing number in how many ways it can be evenly divided into equal groups.
Not suuper useful for time though, honestly
Would be nicer if we had an overall base-12 number system
If we had a base 10 hour system, how would you split it into three shifts?
6 hours 40 minutes?
7 hours with a 20 minute lunch?
I dunno, we’d make it work lolYou just divide 10 by 3. That’s elementary school math.
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
A more entertaining possibility suggests 12 stemmed from the number of joints on the four (non-thumb) fingers of one hand.
Well now I’m conscious of all the joints in my non-thumb fingers.
You can easily count to 12 with just one hand, and you can count to 60 with both hands, in the babylonian style, by using the finger segments.
the clock and the AM/PM system makes much more sense when you count from 0.
0am 1am 2am 3am … 11am
0pm 1pm 2pm 3pm … 11pm
instead of:
12am 1am 2am 3am … 11am
12pm 1pm 2pm 3pm … 11pm
the ancient people that invented the clock were programmers all along??
you may find comfort in knowing that in a mathematical sense, its reasonable to say 12am=0am.
this is because 12 hour clocks use modular arithmetic. doing arithmetic modulo 12 is basically the same thing as doing normal arithmetic with the whole numbers, except you add in the rule 12=0. for example, modulo 12, we have 15 = 3 + 12 = 0 + 3 = 3. (this explanation of modular arithmetic comes from viewing it as “normal addition” in a quotient ring.)
This, basically a lot of things were based on 12 in the olden times. But since the French were against everything British, including their imperial system they based their metric system on base 10. I heard there were even clocks in France that had only 10 hours
It has nothing to do with French. The decimal digit notation was invented in ancient India, then it got adopted by the Arab world and finally reached Europe in the 10th century. But even before so called Arabic numerals ancient Romans were using decimal system as well and their Roman numerals are also based on decimal system.
Thus people all over the world agree that the decimal system is superior, since the ancient times.
12 hours can be evenly split into halves, thirds, fourths and sixths, but naah, apparently is better to only have ten to split it into halves and fifths (who uses fifths anyway) is better right?
You can split ten by any number you wish. That’s the beauty.
I mean, that’s the argument for feet vs meters lol
There was decimal time, with 10 hours of 100 minutes, and a prototype of metric time, with the day as the base unit.
You’re making me want to make a new clock that has a 0 at the top and a 23 to it’s left.
I’ve seen it before (well i think it was 24, not 0), but 24h analog clocks are a thing
It’s probably that way because the system of time predates the invention of zero as a concept by a millennia or two.
Everyone here assumes that midnight=12a.m. is valid everywhere but in a lot languages this is not the case (German and French just to name two). So maybe this is just something weird English speaking people do…
Becasue there was no one inventor of the clock.
12 hours of daylight existed (ancient Sumer) about 4,000 years before the modern clock (medieval Europe)
Even when clocks were invented, it was hundreds of years before they also showed minutes, and another hundred or so years before they showed seconds.
Soon we will have milliseconds
We have had clocks with the accuracy to display fractions of a second for about 120 years (pre-WW1 stop watches were accurate to the 1/10 of a second) and milliseconds for about 50 years but there is no real use as the second is the shortest practical amount of time the vast majority of humans need in their daily lives.
Day doesn’t start at 12, it ends at 11:59 before turning back over to 00:00
Personally I’d argue for base 36 time!
36 hours, each consisting of 36 minutes, each consisting of 36 seconds.
Lets you treat time as a 0-Z number with two decimal points, the day ends at Z.ZZ at night, plus base 36 is SUPER conveniently divisible, which jives really well with how most folks actually consider how much time they need to do whatever or what time it is.
That is a very brave and very odd system you are reccomending, I respect it and absolutely hate it
This was one of many things the French fixed with their revolution but was cruelly taken away by the reactionaries. Decimal time
VIII. Each month is divided into three equal parts, of ten days each, which are called décades… The day, from midnight to midnight, is divided into ten parts or hours, each part into ten others, so on until the smallest measurable portion of the duration. The hundredth part of the hour is called decimal minute; the hundredth part of the minute is called decimal second.
…cruelly?
Very much so
Funniest teardown of it I’ve ever seen: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVPUIRGthI
Sure, let’s make a 24 hour clock and cram everything on there, that will be easy to read from across the room for sure 😏
i was curious and it actually doesn’t look that bad
https://angola.desertcart.com/products/50005975-great-gadgets-1858-24-hour-clock
It looks irritating to read time in the distance pic with the woman standing next to it.
My wristwatch uses a similar dial. You can learn to read it like you can learn anything with exposure.
I find it annoying that it has a 24 instead of a 0, and that it’s at the top instead of the bottom.
I carry a clock in my pocket at all times. Sometimes it makes a weird ringing sound for a bit and weird numbers show up on the clock screen. It scares me every time.
What’s the problem exactly?
This system was made by sexagesimal gang
sounds kinky :P
Like it was smarter to write in base 10, multiples of 12 such as 60 and 24… * roll the eyes *
elaborate
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The day starting at 1 is much, much, dumber than a 12 hour clock.
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Okay so the inventor of the clock had ADHD and hyperfixated on time measurements. What’s your point
Who said anything about ADHD?
