Why 60?
- Spencer Morgenweck
- Jul 27, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 23
The Significance of the Number 60
If you haven't noticed yet, this website is called History in 60. That is no coincidence, and before you say, "Well duh, there's 60 seconds in a minute", let me tell you why that is.
Beginnings
First off, just because (most) people have 10 fingers and 10 toes does not give 10 some kind of cosmic significance. The "Base 10 system," which uses digits 1-9 is, and was, not the only system ever used. For example, the Mayans, Babylonians, and Egyptians would use the base 20, 60 and 12 systems respectively. But this article isn't about the Mayans or the Egyptians (At least for the most part) but about 60.
Babylon (The city, not the empire yet) was where the first base 60 developed and would live its infancy. While it is still a mystery, how the system developed, the system would quickly spread. With the rapid growth of the Babylonian empire, much of southern Mesopotamia would adopt the system. By the time of Hammurabi the system likely stretched as far as the Levant to the west and the Zagros to the east.
Since Babylon had brought the system to much of the known world, the trade savvy Greeks would adopt the system. Throughout the Classical and Hellenistic Era, the Greek city states, and their many colonies world would make heavy use of the sexagesimal (Base 60) system. In Plato's "Republic" and Ptolemy's "Almagest" base 60 systems are used throughout.
In Islamic world the sexagesimal system would make its claim to fame, it's use measuring time, with an hour divided into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds. Lesser known is its use in astronomy, with the sky divided into 360 degrees, each degree into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. The Islamic mathematician Al-Khwarizmi also used the number 60 in his work on algebra, and his book "Al-Jabr" (Al-Jabr -> Al-Gebr -> Algebr -> Algebra, notice anything?)
In medieval Europe, the system continued to be used in various fields, including timekeeping, astronomy, and mathematics (Mostly copied from Islamic practices). The sexagesimal system would continue in Europe as it had in the Islamic World, mainly being used for Astronomy and timekeeping)
Modern Usage
In the 21st century, the number 60 and the sexagesimal system continues to be used, as archaic, as it may be. While timekeeping is an obvious one, the system continues to be used in mathematics, and computing. So yeah, 60 is pretty damn important.
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