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Thought of this in the shower this morning, if anyone has an answer I'd be very interested!

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[-] throwsbooks@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

12 and 60 divide nicely. A quarter of a 12-hour clock is 3 hours, but in decimal time it'd be 2.5 hours. A third is 4 hours in base 12, but some gross 3.33 repeating in decimal.

I just don't like it.

[-] weew@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

That's the same argument for (some) Imperial measurements, but people converted to metric anyways.

[-] Eylrid@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Metric isn't better because it uses 10, it's better because it uses the same base for everything. A measurement system (and number system) that uses 12 for everything would be better than both imperial and metric.

[-] throwsbooks@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I think the benefit of having metric in base 10 rather than 12 is that it matches our numeric base system.

123mm is 12.3cm and 1.23dm and 0.123m.

Converting things in base 12 would be a bit more work, not sure it'd be worth it.

We're not really going around converting time very often.

this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
92 points (95.1% liked)

Showerthoughts

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