this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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Thought of this in the shower this morning, if anyone has an answer I'd be very interested!

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[–] W6KME 22 points 2 years ago (5 children)

While it would he handy to have everything integrated, it's not always vital. We don't need to convert kilograms to seconds very often. Artificially enforced systems have always had trouble replacing older anachronistic ones that are otherwise still useful. Ask people in the UK about their cars' efficiency and you'll often get an answer in miles per gallon.

There's nothing magical about 10, either, other than the accidents of evolution that left us with ten fingers. Base 12 is also extremely convenient, and comes from Sumerians counting with their thumb against each of the three joints on 4 fingers. Go through that process once for each finger on the other hand, and you get 60. And of course, in any industry where things are packed into packages, like nearly everything we buy, dozens fit better than tens. 60 divides very neatly into many convenient and geometrically simple fractions, and a lot of what we do with circles benefits from this.

We probably would have been better standardizing on a base unit that's a power of two, which has more mathematical weight than ten does.

[–] Raakis 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I was writing a reply but you said most of it, so I'll add here. There has also been attempts and/or proposals for decimal time, but the base 12 system is quite rooted. For example during the French revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

[–] atrax 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks! I'll take a look!

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