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Edited by TTL Goose: 2/25/2013 8:38:38 PM
24

Fun Facts about Radians, Degree Measure, and the 24 hour clock.

[quote][url=http://www.bungie.net/en-us/Forum/Post?id=59883302]See here for why this thread has to do with Destiny[/url][/quote] In a time before currency, people traded goods as a basis for an economy. This isn't the most efficient means for exchange since you could only divide your goods by whole numbers generally. Half an egg is a hard thing to measure for example. Our decimal numeral system isn't efficient at dividing groups of whole numbers. When presented with 10 items, we can only divide it by 2 and 5 for example. That doesn't give you many options, but if you base your number system on 12, 16, or even [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal#Origin]60 unique representations[/url], you have many more options to divide a group by whole numbers. Now, when I have 12 eggs, I can divide them by 2, 3, 4, and 6. This is a much more efficient means to exchange goods. Let's look at it differently, fractions. Base 10 1/2 = 5 1/3 = 10/3 = 3.33... 1/4 = 10/4 = 2.5 1/5 = 2 Base 12 1/2 = 6 1/3 = 4 1/4 = 3 1/5 = 12/5 = 2.4 1/6 = 2 Sumerian culture (~3500 BC) was based on a base 60 numeral system and their astronomers used it to describe their night sky and timekeeping which made the mathematics easier. They would break the circle which would describe the ecliptic into 360 parts or degrees. 1 degree can be divide by 60 to give arc-minutes. Each arc-minute is divide by 60 to give arc-seconds. This should be familiar if you read maps as latitude and longitude are given in degree/minute/second formats before they were converted to a digital format. On the equinox, when the day and night is equal, you can divide the day and night into 180 degree segments. Each 180 degree segment is divided into 12 hours, which each hour is 15 degrees of sky. Some say this is because each of the constellations of the zodiac fill an hour of the sky as they rise above the horizon. I don't know if this is true, but 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds, they all work within the base 60 numeral system we've inherited. Just something to keep in mind since we're seeing many radials, circles, and combinations of geometric forms. If you're interested in this, and would like to know other stories behind Mathematics, read this book, [url=http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Mathematics-Second-Edition/dp/0471543977]A History of Mathematics[/url]. It's a great way to spend a couple of bucks. http://james.lab6.com/2003/09/16/24hours/ http://gizmodo.com/5926491/why-there-are-24-hours-in-a-day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(angle)#History

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  • Wow cool observations. Thanks for taking an interest in the topic of my post (I thought my thread was all but dead!). I was thinking of the radial in modern terms, but looking to the origins of our systems makes sense, especially since Destiny keeps referencing ancient methods of describing the universe (geomantics, Ptolemy, etc).

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