Time and Numbers
Many cultures in the early history of our planet
thought of time as a recurring event. That is to say that time repeats in cycles.
There are many examples of cyclical recurrences regarding the passage of time such
as years, moons, days, heartbeats, breaths, etc. A numbering system may reflect some of
these cycles such as the number of days in a year, or the number of moon cycles in a
year.
As cultures keep records (written, verbal or in
stone) of the passage of time, larger cycles patterned in the stars can be
discovered. Some larger cycles noted by cultures are:
- Egyptians - The recurring cycle of around 2000 years
of movement of the zodiac as they rise on the spring equinox.
- Mayans - The Mayan culture used a Vigesimal system,
see base20,. They had two main cycles of time, each with 20 as a
factor. The religious cycle which was calculated by multiplying 20 (number of
fingers and toes) by 13 (13 for 13 moons in a year). This total equals 260 and is
related to cycles of the planet Venus. The secular cycle was calculated by dividing
the number of days in a year (360) by 20 (number of fingers and toes) to get 20 months of
18 days. The total calendar was calculated by synchronizing the aforementioned
cycles resulting in calcuations of extreme magnitude.
- Sumerians - The Sumerian culture used a Sexagesimal
system, see base60. The number 12 was an important factor of this
number system in that it was one of the many factors of 60 see Trading
and Numbers. 12 was then combined with the number of days in a moon phase (around
28). They then added a festival day or two to make a month of 12 months of 30 days
to equal 360 days in a year with 5 extra festival days. The festival days were out
of time and not to be occupied with normal daily behavior. The ease of divisibility of 60
and the advanced place value system lended the Sexagesimal system to great precision in
mathematics. In fact, Kepler, Galileo and others used the Sexagesimal system
in some of their astronomical observations. We still use a base 60 system to keep
track of time with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.
- Chinese - The Cycle of Cathay invented by Huang Ti
some 4500 years ago and was the result of the combination of a cycle of 10 (10 Heavenly
Stems) and 12 (12 signs of the Chinese zodiac). This cycle resulted in 120 days. see
base12
As the observed cycles became larger and larger, a
numbering system must be capable of representing the large values. Usually a
numbering system will acheive this by using either special symbols to represent larger
grouping or a place value system with successive groupings incrementing in orders of
magnitude, and in some cases a symbol for 0 to mark no entries in a place value and
special symbols for numbers.
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Last update on 01/26/98
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