Of course all attempts to create a 10 hour day with 100 minutes to each hour and 100 seconds to each minute have failed. Similarly all attempts to divide the circle into 100 parts have not caught on.
The use of 60 is almost as basic as the use of 10.
All the non-decimal systems I learnt were embedded in memory before I was 20. I don’t expect many will remember these.
As a child I learned the use of 12 and 60 from my grandmother. The use of 12 was automatic with 4 and 3. Three pice to a pie. 4 pies to an anna and 16 annas to the rupee. When driving around India with my father, miles and furlongs and yards and feet came naturally. Bushels and pecks and gallons and quarts and pints came later as an apprentice in England.
Decimals are simple. But they are also simplistic.
Perhaps too simple.
Rupee, anna, pice, pies
Pounds, shillings, pence, farthings
Ton, hundredweights, pounds, ounces
Mile, furlongs, yards, feet
Bushel, pecks, gallons, quarts, pints
Tags: numbers
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