Analog clocks lend themselves better to thinking in fractions of an hour or day, like this post is talking about, as an hour and a half day are both represented as a circle
Digital clocks lend themselves better to thinking in terms of number of minutes and hours directly. When working numerically, fractions of 60 are generally less intuitive, and fractions of 12 often so as well. Most people who don’t work with angles often think of fractions in terms of percent, or powers of two.
“Quarter past” kind of tweaks the brain wrong when a quarter is intuitively 25.
It’s also precision. I think this is the biggest thing we’ve lost is some expression of precision.
11:45 from a digital clock is very precise. You expect something at exactly that time, and get more impatient with vagaries of traffic or delays or clocks that aren’t synched, or just that people aren’t digital
“quarter of” implies less precision. If I have to wait five minutes, you’re still not late. Regular human activity in the real world is not exact so allowing for inaccuracy is both less stressful and more practical
Analog clocks lend themselves better to thinking in fractions of an hour or day, like this post is talking about, as an hour and a half day are both represented as a circle
Digital clocks lend themselves better to thinking in terms of number of minutes and hours directly. When working numerically, fractions of 60 are generally less intuitive, and fractions of 12 often so as well. Most people who don’t work with angles often think of fractions in terms of percent, or powers of two.
“Quarter past” kind of tweaks the brain wrong when a quarter is intuitively 25.
Really? I’ve always found them very pleasing.
They chose 12 precisely because it’s easy to divide!
I wish our numeric system was base 12 instead of base 10!
You’re on Lemmy, of course you like fractions of 12. It is a very convenient base, having so many factors, but most people don’t think like that
That might be the most obscure stereotype I’ve ever read. 😆
It’s also precision. I think this is the biggest thing we’ve lost is some expression of precision.