. "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, which is based on the number 60.


Myrah: 60? That’s such a weird number. Why not 10 like us?

Mom: That’s what makes it so interesting! We use a base 10 system—because we have 10 fingers. But the Babylonians loved base 60. They chose it because 60 can be divided by many numbers—2, 3, 4, 5, 6… all the way up to 12. That made calculations much easier back then.


Myrah: So, they liked it because it made math easier?

Mom: Exactly! Imagine trying to divide one hour into equal parts. 60 is perfect for that. You can split it in halves, thirds, quarters—whatever you need. That’s super useful when you're watching the stars or keeping track of time with sundials and water clocks, which they used a lot.


Myrah: Wait, they watched the stars too?



Mom: Oh yes! The Babylonians were amazing astronomers. They used their 60-based system to measure angles in the sky. That’s why we have 360 degrees in a circle today—60 times 6. And each degree? It's divided into 60 minutes and 60 seconds. So even angles use their math!


Myrah:Whoa! So time and math and angles all go back to the Babylonians?


Mom: You got it! Every time we look at a clock ticking 60 seconds, or check the 360 degrees in a compass, we’re actually using math invented over 4,000 years ago!


Myrah: That’s like... ancient superhero math!


Mom: Haha, yes! The Babylonians were the math heroes of the ancient world. And thanks to them, we still count time the way they did.


Myrah: That’s so cool! I’m going to tell my friends we owe our clocks to ancient math wizards.


Mom: And you can tell them this: not all heroes wear capes—some just know how to divide 60 really well!



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