comp.os.linux.networking

More useful, why?

Science uses ten-based divisions as soon as it can, with microseconds,
nanoseconds, and so on.

I either misunderstood the point you made, or you haven't given the reasons
yet that the a sexagesimal system is much more useful to those who don't
need to count on their fingers and toes. Why would you need a subdivision
of 12 or 15, if smaller units of tenths are consistently available?
Coordinates expressed as 100th of some unit would be more accurate, not
less accurate, than if they are expressed as a third or sixth of that unit.
Sexagesimal is more useful if you're used to it, is my feeling. If you
grew up working with a centesimally derived time system, maybe that would
suddenly be more useful.

I'm not an expert on the Mayan system, but do you suppose it was sexagesimal
system? Maybe someone who knows will enlighten us on that. If it was not,
then I would be interested in what they had come up with for smaller
divisions of time, knowing that their calendar was supposed to be more
accurate than ours. Of course, in their case, what is convenient to work
with probably would not have been of the utmost importance.


Eric


ynotssor wrote:


> Ignoring the trivial case of 1 and themselves, 100 is evenly divisible by
> 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50, while 60 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
> 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30, making a sexagesimal system much more useful than
> centesimal (*not* metric as you claim) for temporal and directional
> coordinates. More useful that is, for anybody who doesn't need to use
> their fingers and toes to count in base10. Russia and some eastern



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Eric Thompson
eTc Computer Consultants
duetc@etc-consult.com
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