Comment on Whoever invented the 12-hour clock never doubted that people will always know if it's day or night

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givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

It’s like someone had doubts people could count much past 12

More like the people who invented a lot of shit used base 12.

Things stopping in base 12, is because the thing is so old, it predates base 10.

Like, pick a language, count to thirteen:

Ein, zwei, drei, fire, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zein, elf, zwolf, dreizein…

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…

Notice how 11 and 12 aren’t one-teen and two-teen?

On each hand is 4 sets of 3 knuckles, touch your thumb to each knuckle and your finger counting on one hand higher than we can with two. Pretty sure there’s some pretty neat math tricks with their method too, almost like built in abacus.

But all this is off memory.

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