Why Base 60?

    My first thought was Babylonians might use sexagesimal without rational thinking. Maybe a leader at that time made this decision or they had a belief in 60 as the lucky number. Later, when doing the fraction problem with base 60, I realized I first thought could be completely wrong. There are many factors for 60 and thus it is convenient to represent fractions and angles in the sexagesimal system. For instance, compared to base 10, 60 can be divided by 3. Therefore, one-third which is a recurring decimal in base 10, can be neatly presented as 20 in base 60. 

    Nowadays, base 60 still plays an important role in our daily life. The most significant one is that seconds, minutes and hours are measured in the sexagesimal system. According to the sexagenary cycle, years also can be represented in a cycle of 60. In addition, the angle of 60 degrees is extremely important in trigonometry. Based on these thinkings, I believe that base 60 is closely related to the development of astronomy.

    During the research, my thoughts were mostly confirmed. Additionally, I read about Evelyn Lamb’s idea (2017) of sexagesimal and floating-point arithmetic which is used in the current computer system. I surprisingly found I used similar tricks of calculating divisions as him. Moreover, I learned about the relationship between sexagesimal and duodecimal systems (Jacobson 2013) and there is an association in the US that promotes base 12 to replace base 10 for the mainstream study. 

Reference

Jacobson, R. (2013). 60: Behind every SECOND, millenniums of history. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/60-behind-every-second-millenniums-of-history.html. 

Lamb, E. (2017). The joy of sexagesimal floating-point arithmetic. Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/the-joy-of-sexagesimal-floating-point-arithmetic/.