• nudny ekscentryk
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    fedilink
    271 year ago

    Ehhhh, no. There are very important reasons we divide the time this way. 24 is a highly composite number (a number with more divisors than all numbers preceding it; like an opposite of a prime number). This allows us to easily divide the day into halves, thirds, quarters and sixths. So is 60, with even more divisors. My guess is the same thing goes for the switch from Roman to Julian calendar (ten to twelve months in a year)

    • SSTF
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      1 year ago

      The history of the calendar in Roman times is actually an entire topic to itself.

      The pre-Julian calendar required fine tuning every year in winter to keep the rest of the months aligned with the seasons.

      Technically not a difficult job to keep the calendar running smoothly and consistently, but the person in charge of the calendar in Rome was a politician, so they would play political games with the length of the year.

      Caesar wanted a calendar that would run on auto-pilot to strip power away from those politicians.

      By sheer coincidence when Caesar made his reform, during the the changeover of calendars while he was in charge, he got to rule over a 400+ day long year.

      • @Misconduct
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        1 year ago

        Ahhh. This is it. This is the good stuff. Lemmy is really coming along I missed this.

    • @ManjuuLemmy
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      21 year ago

      It’s thanks to post like these that I now have to find videos on how to clock was invented and burn my weekend being productive. Thanks stranger!

    • 𝐘Ⓞz҉
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      21 year ago

      Thank you :) I love how lemmy has all the smart people.