Re:UTC Is Enough for Everyone, Right?
by waterhouse on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @01:15AM
(#17185244)
Wiki[1] seems to support your last sentence's description of how base 60 appeared.
Now, that approach would guarantee that your base is a product of two numbers (# fingers * # bones on non-thumb fingers). And, if your non-thumb fingers are roughly equivalent to each other, then that would guarantee it's a product of three numbers (# fingers * # non-thumb fingers * # bones per non-thumb finger). So I would say "it's a product of lots of numbers" does have a lot to do with the origins of base 60. Base 10, of course, is (# hands * # fingers per hand). Base 12 being more factorable than base 10 is just the luck of getting 3 * 4 vs 2 * 5.
Wait, doesn’t that just give you 25?
No, counting to 12 using the sections between your knuckles of your 4 fingers using your thumb on same hand will give you 3x4 and then 5 of those is 60. If you were doing fingers as a single digit, you'd get 25, though.
Counting that way on one hand and then using the other hand to tally the groups would give you 5 sets of 12 or 60.