this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
455 points (95.6% liked)
Memes
45831 readers
3054 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ehhhh, no. There are very important reasons we divide the time this way. 24 is a highly composite number (a number with more divisors than all numbers preceding it; like an opposite of a prime number). This allows us to easily divide the day into halves, thirds, quarters and sixths. So is 60, with even more divisors. My guess is the same thing goes for the switch from Roman to Julian calendar (ten to twelve months in a year)
The history of the calendar in Roman times is actually an entire topic to itself.
The pre-Julian calendar required fine tuning every year in winter to keep the rest of the months aligned with the seasons.
Technically not a difficult job to keep the calendar running smoothly and consistently, but the person in charge of the calendar in Rome was a politician, so they would play political games with the length of the year.
Caesar wanted a calendar that would run on auto-pilot to strip power away from those politicians.
By sheer coincidence when Caesar made his reform, during the the changeover of calendars while he was in charge, he got to rule over a 400+ day long year.
Ahhh. This is it. This is the good stuff. Lemmy is really coming along I missed this.