The ancient reason why an hour has 60 minutes

A 5,000-year-old mysterious decision led directly to the way we count time today, reports BBCPeriscope broadcast.

In October 1793 the newly created French Republic launched an unfortunate experiment. She decided to change her time.

Day, revolutionaries decided, now it would be ten hours apart, not 24. Every hour there would be 100 decimal minutes on the other side of the 100 decimal seconds.

The time system was part of a wider revolutionary calendar aimed at rationalising (and decreasing) the structure of the years, including a new 10-day week. Soon work was started to turn existing hours into the decimal system. The municipalities mounted decimal clocks and official activities were registered using the new calendar.

Soon he began to cause endless headaches, says Finn Buridge, a science communicator at the Greenwich Royal Museum in London, Great Britain, the Royal Observatory headquarters and the site of Greenwich Meantime.

The restoration and converting of existing hours proved extremely complex. The system isolated France from neighboring countries, while the rural population hated vacation day that only took place every 10th day. After all, December time barely lasted more than a year in France.

To understand how we started counting, and we still count today, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute, however, we have to turn the clock back into an era before the dawn of time calculation. Because it's the story of one of the earliest numbers systems that started us on this road and explains why this weird system has long survived civilizations that invented it.

A base of 60

In origin are the Sumer, an ancient people who lived in Mesopotamia (approximately modern - day Iraq) from about 5300-1940 BC and one of the first civilizations ever to form cities. Along with many other inventions, including irrigation and plow, they are credited with creating the first system of known writing. This happened to include a system of numbers based on the concept of 60.

Keep your hand in front of you, bend a finger, and see there are three knots. Count all joints on one hand (not including the thumb) and you'll reach 12. Count this 12 as one using one finger in the other hand and resume the count at 12 in the first hand until the five fingers are used in the second hand. What did you count on? Sixty.

This is one of the speculation theories about why the sumer based their developing mathematical system on 60, not on 10 ʹ a decision that still has implications for how we measure time today. (Find what the way you count for you in this article by Anand Jagapa reveals. )

The development of numbers written on their part was prompted by the need to keep data on the increasingly larger and complex agricultural system supporting their growing cities, says Martin Willis Monroe, an expert in cuneiform cultures (the early Middle East writing systems) at the University of New Brunswick in Canada.

They began using small clay tablets, often the size of an intelligent or smaller telephone, to keep track of numbers by printing details in soft clay. Other painterial notes soon followed, developing in the famous cuneiform text of the sumer.

In the mid - 19th century alone, these clay tablets were discovered and began to decipher. They show that the sumer used a host of numbers systems, says Monroe, but the most remarkable for mathematics, and so ultimately for astronomy and time, it soon became a so-called sexageal system.

Sumers used 60 in a way comparable to the way we use 10 now. When we reach nine, we move a space to the left, write one and add zero to the right, says Erica Meszaros, who recently completed a doctorate in the history of exact science and antiquity at Brown University in the United States. “ [It's] the same thing with the sixty-year-old number: they reach 59 and instead of having a number higher than 59, they use only one, but one place higher. ”

Despite the tempting theory of counting the above fingers, it is not clear why the sumer decided on a 60 - based system. There's not much evidence where 60,” says Monroe comes from. Some researchers have suggested that the sexting system may have been earlier than the sumer.

However, the ease of using it is clear. Sixty can be divided by one, two, three, four, five, six, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 without need of fractions or December numbers. Compare this to 10, which can only be divided by one, two, five and 10, and its advantages begin to become clear. If you're developing numbers for very practical purposes, such as accounting, taxes, or measuring fields and dividing fields for your sons' heritage, having an easy way to do these mathematical operations can be very useful,” says Meszaros. The Origin of Time

There is no clear evidence that the sumer used time, although the measurement of time likely existed in the region before the first documented use of solar clocks and water watches by the Babylonians (an ancient Mesopotamian civilization that came after the sumer) about 1000 BC, says Monroe.

The first known civilization of day - to - hour division was the ancient Egyptians, says Rita Gautschy, an archeastronoma at the University of Basel, Switzerland, which appears in religious texts from about 2500 BC. The first known objects related to the hours initially referred to 12 hours of the night - these were diagonal watches with stars found on the inner cover of noble Egyptian coffins from about 2100 and 1800 BC, says Gauschy.

It is not certain why the Egyptians chose a 12 - hour subdivision by eventually leading to 24 hours on the full day. The Egyptians had a zodiacal 12-star cycle, but this was likely introduced after the first 12-hour references. Counting to 12 using one hand's joints and fingers is another possibility. Some experts believe it may have been because of the way they were chosen for a 10-day week was crossed with the visibility of certain stars.

The earliest known instruments to measure time, solar watches, and water watches appeared in Egypt about 1500 BC. Some were used during daily work, but most “were probably more connected to the religious sphere and rituals” than to the timing, says Gautschy. “Personally, I think many of them were gifts to the gods, constitutional gifts”, she says. “We don't have much information about the scientific calculation of time [from the era]. ”

Initially, in texts about the business of day - to - day life, the smallest unit of time was generally a work shift, says Gautschy ʹ was usually imagined as morning or afternoon. But in the Roman period of ancient Egypt (from 30 B.C.E.), hours became the standard, half an hour, which also began to appear, she says.

Minutes Coming

Meanwhile, the Babylonians had also developed the use of watches. They would eventually be the first to divide the clock into much smaller units, although not for time measurement purposes.

The Babylonians, who flourished from 2000 BC to 540 BC, adopted both cuneiform writing and the system of sixty - number numbers from the sumer. By 1000 BC, says Messaro, they had developed a calendar based on time needed for the sun to return to the same position in heaven a little over 360 days.

It's a system that worked well enough for the Babylonians that people who came after them took it in large numbers to get the information and astronomical traditions, Erica Messaros.

This was a useful number for a civilization that already used a 60 - based counting system. “Uau, isn't that good in a sixty-five?” says Meszaros. The “, in fact, led very beautifully in 12 months with 30 days each”, which also adapted to the moon's cycle, she says.

The Babylonians developed a practical time system for daily use that separated both day and night each to 12, as did the Egyptians. The length of these <x0 seasons” would vary by length of day and night. We divided the day into 12 because we share the night sky in 12 months and 12 zodiacal signs”, says Meszaros.

Many other ancient civilizations used seasonal clocks and were still in use in 15th century Europe and 19th century Japan. However, this seasonal time period was never divided into smaller units for practical use, notes Monroe. “ [This] is not something true until the early modern period... He does not exist in Mesopotamia and other ancient cultures because he does not need it. ”

The Babylonians, who flourished from 2000 B.C.E. Up to 540 B.C.E., they adopted both cuneiform and numeric system sixty (sexagecial) from the sumer. By 1000 B.C.E., they had developed a calendar based on the time it took the sun to return to the same position in heaven a little over 360 days.

This was a system that worked very well for the Babylonians, so that the people who came later almost entirely took it to take advantage of astronomical records and traditions.

This was a very suitable number for a civilization that already used a 60 - based counting system. “How beautifully this fits into a system of sixty! ” says Messaros. This, in fact, led very naturally to 12 months of 30 days each, which also coincided with the cycle of the moon,” says.

The Babylonians developed a practical system of time for daily use that divided each day and night into 12 parts, as did the Egyptians. The length of these <x0 seasonal> ” differed according to the length of the day and night.

We divided the day to 12 because we share the night sky in 12 months and 12 signs of zodiac,” says Meszaros.

Many other ancient civilizations used seasonal watches, and they continued to be used until the 20th century in Europe and the 19th century in Japan. However, this method of measuring time was not divided into smaller units for practical use. According to Monroe, this was not something that existed until the early modern period. There is no such thing as Mesopotamia and other ancient cultures, because there really was no need for it. ”

The Babylonians also developed another system of time to calculate and measure astronomical events that were not used in everyday life. This system divided the day to 12 “beru”, which we might think equal to two modern hours. Babylon was not the only ancient culture that used these; they also appear in ancient China and Japan, for example.

Because of the need for more precise measurements in their calculations, the Babylonians began to divide these beru (two hours) into 30 ancient minutes called “us”, each equivalent to four modern minutes. These were later divided into 60 smaller units called “inda”, each about four modern seconds.

These subdivisions were probably used “because we divide things into groups of 60”, says Meszaros.

However, the Babylonians did not view this as a time division, notes Monroe. “They thought of it as a division of numbers measuring the distance to the sky or the speed of the planets. ”

It is difficult to say exactly who affected who in all these ancient developments of time, says Gautschy. From about 330 B.C.E., Egypt, with the new science center in Alexandria, became a place where people came together and ideas from many regions,” says. “This is what we call the Hellenic world. ”

However, it is clear that ancient Greeks adopted the astronomical system of Babylonian times, says Meszaros. “They kept the same division because it allowed them to add new observations on existing ones... It was a system that worked very well for the Babylonians, and the people who came afterward took it entirely to take advantage of astronomical records and traditions. ”

Seconds count

While Greeks had sand clocks in courts “to ensure that people had the same time to speak”, the Babylonian system of time they adopted was used only conceptually by astrologers and was not very important for everyday life, says Gautschy.

However, the concepts of hours, minutes, and seconds that emerged from this Hellenistic world were transmitted from centuries to our day. Just a few hundred years ago, time - measuring equipment became quite accurate so that minutes and seconds could begin to be used in everyday life.

Today, seconds are used in many scientific definitions. When scientists began measuring less than seconds, they went into a metric system, dividing it into milliseconds and microseconds (a thousandth and a millionth of a second).

In the 20th century, atomic clocks allowed scientists to redefine the second more accurately. Instead of relying on the rotation of the sun, it was determined by a very precise value based on the absorption and emissions of microwave radiation from cezium-133 atoms.

Today, the global network of atomic clocks holds time for almost every modern hour and is behind technologies such as internet, GPS and very precise MRI imaging.

However, the history of measuring time shows that time is actually a human structure determined by human decisions. Hours, minutes and seconds came to us through a series of choices, coincidences, and historical developments. But they remained as a useful legacy over the centuries a remnant of ancient times so entrenched that changing the system would be very difficult.

Even during France's 20th - century effort V III to corrupt time, the new system was virtually not used in practice, although similar efforts to decompress distance measurements and currency were adopted and used today.

Discimal time lasted only 17 months, while the calendar remained in use for about a decade. “U proved, but did not succeed and spread,” says Burridge.

A 1795 speech by Claudee-Antoine Prieur, a member of the French National Convention, may have been the final blow for decimal time. He argued that it brought virtually no apparent benefit to people and could even damage the reputation of other metric systems which otherwise were beneficial.