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This. Base 10 sucks because it’s harder to evenly divide. People give imperial a bunch of shit because the conversion factors are weird (and they really are), but have no problem with time units which are even more fucked up. We use a metric-like system for measuring units smaller than a second (milli, micro, nano seconds), but then there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, etc etc. The Gregorian calendar doesn’t even have a simple conversion between things like days and months! It depends on the fucking month!
Time up to days isn’t even that bad - it’s just base 60 because we get that part from ancient Mesopotamians who liked base 60 for the same reasons people like 12 (but maybe went a little overboard?). Since 12 is a factor of 60, going to base 12 would make hours-minutes-seconds jive better with other numbers. Only changing to base 12, a half day would be written as 10 hours, full day 20 hours. An hour as 50 minutes. A minute as 50 seconds.
I think there’s no helping higher than that - there’s no relation between months and days or months and years - they’re separate cycles that we just smushed together one day and refuse to separate. And days and years aren’t related in a convenient integer. Some things would coincidentally work out - 2 years could be written as 20 months - but for the most part there’s no way to line it up nicely.
This is where the French messed up not using base 12. We could have had the best of both worlds.
This. Base 10 sucks because it’s harder to evenly divide. People give imperial a bunch of shit because the conversion factors are weird (and they really are), but have no problem with time units which are even more fucked up. We use a metric-like system for measuring units smaller than a second (milli, micro, nano seconds), but then there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, etc etc. The Gregorian calendar doesn’t even have a simple conversion between things like days and months! It depends on the fucking month!
Time up to days isn’t even that bad - it’s just base 60 because we get that part from ancient Mesopotamians who liked base 60 for the same reasons people like 12 (but maybe went a little overboard?). Since 12 is a factor of 60, going to base 12 would make hours-minutes-seconds jive better with other numbers. Only changing to base 12, a half day would be written as 10 hours, full day 20 hours. An hour as 50 minutes. A minute as 50 seconds.
I think there’s no helping higher than that - there’s no relation between months and days or months and years - they’re separate cycles that we just smushed together one day and refuse to separate. And days and years aren’t related in a convenient integer. Some things would coincidentally work out - 2 years could be written as 20 months - but for the most part there’s no way to line it up nicely.