Comment on Is there a “proper“ way to say “6:05 AM”?
CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 10 months agoThat’s there because of analog clocks, which somebody in history decided would look too cluttered if they counted all 24 hrs, and at any rate we’re asleep for roughly a third of them anyway, so it’s superfluous. The 12-hr clock is an elegant design solution.
rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
I’m not so sure. I get why it is the way it is. I think these numbers are called Highly composite numbers. That’s why we got 12 and 60.
But it comes with issues. As I said you start with the 12 and then the one. That’s probably because the number zero has a complicated past. And now you have the clock going around twice a day and you need to prefix everything with am/pm. Or it’s clear from the context.
I think the number Pi is the same complicated concept. Why half around the circle and you need to memorize all the '2’s in the formulas? Why not make it once around the circle and use tau = 6.28… ?
So I think I can understand why we got there. But we have the number 0 nowadays. And electric light so we can stay up till 1am. So it seems an outdated concept to me to keep the 12 around. And if it were elegant, you wouldn’t need to specify which turn of the clock you’re talking about.