For all the sense it makes… If it can be divided into a non prime. it is bad. Bad time, bad day, bad week, bad month, bad year… If I’m anxious it’s temperature and number of steps I took to arrive at my last destination
If you want a real answer, it’s probably to do with arabic numerals being a base ten system, then being adopted globally, after the standardization of a base 12 in isolation for something like time. Arabic numerals specifically probably resulting from us often having 10 fingers, so it’s a natively intuitive system from that aspect. Though representing numbers from other systems (like base 12) in systems like base 10, isn’t hard, so most often, we just don’t really think of them existing in base 12 (like time does) since we think in base 10 most of the time.
Ask someone who has dealt with the binary system about this, and they will tell you the exact same thing. Even people experienced with binary counting logic still natively translate it to base 10 because it’s more intuitive that way. It’s one of the reasons that the doubling of possibilities every additional bit is a relevant discussion. Technically in the frame of binary, you’re just adding one more place value, however due to how binary works, and how base 10 works, it’s a rather disconnected counting system (base 10 has a lot more redundant uses of numbers, binary is mathematically perfect)
It’s the same reason why different parts of the world speak different languages with different grammar rules, shit’s weird, and sometimes it doesnt get adopted logically.
12 has more divisibles than 10.
12, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1
10, 5, 2, 1
Some suspect 12 was picked because you can more easily divide up into more useful time chunks.
Edit: you wrote this in your comment and I missed it somehow.
Then why don’t we use a base 12 counting system instead?
Base 12 or base 8 would make me so happy.
But if could be worse. Imagine a universe where some idiot established base 7 or base 13.
Base prime sounds kinda cool though
True. It does sound cool for the same reason it would be a total nightmare to use.
A base prime would quiet my OCD 😓
It gets triggered by divisors?
I almost would have expected the opposite. Though I get that you can’t control it in any way.
For all the sense it makes… If it can be divided into a non prime. it is bad. Bad time, bad day, bad week, bad month, bad year… If I’m anxious it’s temperature and number of steps I took to arrive at my last destination
im convinced that base 8, or octal, as it’s known in cs was developed specifically for the purposes of computationally derived terrorism.
Just use binary, it’s better. If you really care, just use hex.
US length measurements…
The US didn’t exist when these choices were made
we do, it’s literally the imperial system.
If you want a real answer, it’s probably to do with arabic numerals being a base ten system, then being adopted globally, after the standardization of a base 12 in isolation for something like time. Arabic numerals specifically probably resulting from us often having 10 fingers, so it’s a natively intuitive system from that aspect. Though representing numbers from other systems (like base 12) in systems like base 10, isn’t hard, so most often, we just don’t really think of them existing in base 12 (like time does) since we think in base 10 most of the time.
Ask someone who has dealt with the binary system about this, and they will tell you the exact same thing. Even people experienced with binary counting logic still natively translate it to base 10 because it’s more intuitive that way. It’s one of the reasons that the doubling of possibilities every additional bit is a relevant discussion. Technically in the frame of binary, you’re just adding one more place value, however due to how binary works, and how base 10 works, it’s a rather disconnected counting system (base 10 has a lot more redundant uses of numbers, binary is mathematically perfect)
It’s the same reason why different parts of the world speak different languages with different grammar rules, shit’s weird, and sometimes it doesnt get adopted logically.
Historically double length hours also existed: 6 hours for daytime and 6 hours for nighttime.
One can’t rule out the convenient dividers argument but I think that can’t be the only reason.