• ☭SaltyIcetea☭@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    24 hours cause Egyptians split their sun dials and star decans into 12 parts each (probably cause 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6) which the greeks later turned into equal length hours (before the length would change over the year)

    60 minutes due to Babylonian base-60 math

    12 hour format is just tradition at this point, but derived from the sun dials which only worked at day, so half the time, and the star decans which only worked at night, so the other half.

    pretty much every country except the US uses the 24h format on digitial clocks now

    also the dude in the meme was kinda right: the day will be divided into 12 segments. and the night will too. at least originally

    • ethaver@kbin.earth
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      4 months ago

      It’s called a “highly composite number!” I read up on a lot of this stuff while learning about numerology and other esoteric spiritual traditions!