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Babylonian base-60 numeral system. First devised by the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, the system is still in use today for measuring angles, time, and geographic coordinates.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...60_numbers.jpg
Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...1787#post94713
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...962#post133830
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...420#post135480
So how do you know if it's 60 or 1?
The short answer is that it depends on the column in which the number was written.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncadoo
The Babylonians used a place system like we do. So, the 'one' symbol (let's use the circumflex, ^, here) written in the rightmost column would denote one, while written in the column left of that would denote 60.
We would write 60 as ^0 to make it clear that the ^ mark was in the sixties column but the Babylonians didn't develop a written zero symbol until later in their mathematical development. Obviously, the absence of a zero marker can lead to ambiguity in a place number system but they seemed to manage by depending on context to decide what was meant.Code:| | ^ | = 1
| ^ | | = 60
It's interesting to note that the form '10' is the base in every place number system...
10 = 2 in base 2 (binary)
10 = 8 in base 8 (octal)
10 = 10 in base 10 (decimal)
10 = 16 in base 16 (hexadecimal)
10 = N in base N