Comments by "EebstertheGreat" (@EebstertheGreat) on "Cuneiform Numbers - Numberphile" video.

  1. His explanation of the circle doesn't really make sense. Each sextant is divided into 60 degrees, not 10 degrees. It's not clear why it would be natural to divide one sextant into sixths and then into tenths. However, 60 has the advantage of being a highly composite number, and that's probably why it was used to handle fractions. The Romans used 24 in a similar way.
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  2. ​ @Archangel-cw7mq  But there is no evidence of Babylonians (or anyone) using a circle of 60 degrees. Circular trigonometry was done using chords of the circle. Angles were not measured in degrees at all, but rather slopes, lengths of chords, etc. were measured. Greeks who used the Babylonian sexagesimal system for fractions did use 360 degrees in a circle (dividing the equilateral triangle into sixtieths, not the circle), with further subdivisions into minutes. And we still use 360 degrees today. In the video, he makes it sound like the idea of dividing a circle into sixtieths was itself somehow responsible for the sexagesimal system, which makes no sense on a lot of levels.
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