12

Caoimhín

Emm..

Maybe this isnt the right place so Mods please feel free to move.

I got to wondering about the number 12 this morning. It seems to be a very significant number;

12 months of the year.
12 hours in a day.
12 inches in a foot.
12 apostles.
etc etc...

Now, what i was wondering is why 12? It seems to be a very strange number to hit on. We have ten fingers, ten toes to count on so why did we end up with 12?
Im not getting at the imperial measurement system as such, but im curious as to why 12 was decided as the basic unit.

Samurai

jeez maybe you should write a prequal to that awful film number 23

nyarlothothep

let us not forget December 21 (12 backwards) 2012. A very weird experience I had was seeing the number 13 practically everywhere. I was even assigned the name Elvis, the first two letters of which were written like 13 backwards. My point is that if you look for patterns you will find them.

Caoimhín

Meh, the best i can work out is that because there is 12 full moons in a year, there is 12 months. From that we got 12 hours daytime and 12 hours night time which seems to have led to 12 being used as the basic unit in the imperial measurement system.

gondorff

When time goes metric we'll really travel.

Red Hand

Caoimhín wrote: »

Meh, the best i can work out is that because there is 12 full moons in a year, there is 12 months. From that we got 12 hours daytime and 12 hours night time which seems to have led to 12 being used as the basic unit in the imperial measurement system.

No. 12 hours daytime vs 12 hours nighttime isn't related to the moon. It comes from the 24 hour day that is lazily divided into two. The 24 hour day comes from how long it takes the earth to spin on it's axis and is not exactly 24 hours...it can vary depending on where the earth is on the rotation around the sun.

12 holds no more sigificance other than you choosing to take value in it.

Nevyn

There are 13 moons in the year not 12.

Caoimhín

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

No. 12 hours daytime vs 12 hours nighttime isn't related to the moon. It comes from the 24 hour day that is lazily divided into two. The 24 hour day comes from how long it takes the earth to spin on it's axis and is not exactly 24 hours...it can vary depending on where the earth is on the rotation around the sun.

12 holds no more sigificance other than you choosing to take value in it.

Right, fair enough. But why not divide the time it takes the earth to spin on its axis into 10 hours, or 5 hours? Why 12?

Im not choosing to take value in 12, you cant deny that there is a significance in the number.

Red Hand

Caoimhín wrote: »

Right, fair enough. But why not divide the time it takes the earth to spin on its axis into 10 hours, or 5 hours? Why 12?

24 is divided by 2.

Therefore, 2 is just as valid a number as 12. Or 24 is equally as valid.

Im not choosing to take value in 12, you cant deny that there is a significance in the number.

I do.

WhiskeyGoblin

Ah the reason your finding things that link to 12 is becasue thats what your mind is constantly thinking of
Surely think of different numbers and you will find more patterns

8kvscdpglqnyr4

There is a reason why 12 is such a popular number in our culture (and multiples of 12). Why every have a dozen of anything? Why 12 months in the year ... etc. Why 24 hours in a day and not 14? Or 38? And why 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute?

The answer is because of way the Babylonians used to count ... this is how they did it:
Point you right thumb to touch the base of your right index finger and count "ONE". Then move your thumb up to the middle of your right index finger and count "TWO". Then move your thumb to the top of your right index finger and count "THREE". Each finger has 3 distinct segments. So on your right hand, you can count to 12!

8kvscdpglqnyr4

Just to follow up on my previous post. I found an interesting link that describes what I was talking about in more detail.
http://www.scienceray.com/Mathematics/Applied-Mathematics/Why-are-There-60-Minutes-in-an-Hour.516929

4Xcut

It may be that 12 is a better base than 10. There's a friend of mine that has a reasonably good mathematical argument of why 12 is better. Not least because then the base, 12, would not just be even but threeven. Realistically the only reason that we use 10 is that, as mentioned above, we have 10 fingers so counting is easier.

Also, someone mentioned metric time. It has been tried, in france i think, but didn't work out.