. "Ever Wondered Why There Are 60 Seconds in a Minute? Thank the Babylonians!"
“Myrah! Wake up, sweetheart! It’s already 7:15—you’ll miss your school bus!” her mom said gently, giving her a soft shake. Myrah groaned and rubbed her eyes, then slowly sat up with a big yawn. She looked sleepily at the clock on the wall and gave a little frown. “Mom,” she mumbled “who even decides what time it is? Like… why are there 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour?” Her mom smiled. That was just like Myrah—asking big, curious questions first thing in the morning, even before she got out of bed. Myrah: Mom, why does one minute have 60 seconds and one hour have 60 minutes? Why not 100 like in school marks? Mom: That’s a brilliant question! It actually goes way back—thousands of years—to a group of people called the Babylonians. They lived in ancient Mesopotamia, in what we now call Iraq . Myrah: The Babylonians? Did they invent time? Mom: Not exactly, but they helped shape the way we measure it. They used a special number system called the sexagesimal system, whi...