What is it with round numbers?

[Jenkins]

Who sets their alarm clock at 3 minutes to the hour, or seven minutes before the half hour, for example? No-one, I’d imagine.
or no-one in their right mind.

And another one here who sets the alarm at just before the half hour or full hour - it then gives me a couple of minutes coming round time before getting out of bed on the half hour/full hour and leaving for work 30 minutes later.
I also have a second alarm which is always set for 3 minutes past the half hour or full hour just in case.

 

[Alex321]

I can tell that you went to college.

And have spent the last 40 years working with computers

 

[Seevio]

Who sets their alarm clock at 3 minutes to the hour, or seven minutes before the half hour, for example? No-one, I’d imagine.
or no-one in their right mind.

Apparently it's more common than you thought. My alarm is one of those where you hold the button to let the numbers cycle through. After a couple of seconds the cycling speeds up. If I don't hit the exact time I was going for I have to go through another 24 hour cycle. The result of all this is that I just get it close enough. This can be 3 minutes to the hour. So sue me.

 

[Oldhippy]

I rarely use it, but mine is set for five past so I miss the news on purpose.

 

[rikki]

There should be more love for the triangular numbers.
6
15
28 etc
They're great!

6 and 28 are also considered "perfect numbers" in that they are the sum of their factors (divisors).

 

[slowmotion]

@rikki, I've got one for you.

[media]
]View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfZWp-hGCdA[/media]

 

[matticus]

You can never escape base 10. You mean base decimal.

No matter what base you use, the base number is always written as 10.

In hexadecimal, the number 10 is what would be written as 16 in decimal.

I really hate to say this .... but he's right.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Who sets their alarm clock at 3 minutes to the hour, or seven minutes before the half hour, for example? No-one, I’d imagine.
or no-one in their right mind.

Our alarm clock is still on BST as is the phone, so don’t ask me.

 

[tyred]

I might devise a new system of numbers working to the base 23. Base 10 is boring.

 

[matticus]

I had someone asking me to pick them up at 17 minutes past once, as they'd be too early if we set off at 20 past. This was for a 150 mile drive, and yes, they were serious.

I've read this several times now - surely it's the wrong way round? 20 past might be too late. It's 3 minutes later than 17 past!!!

 

[ClichéGuevara]

I've read this several times now - surely it's the wrong way round? 20 past might be too late. It's 3 minutes later than 17 past!!!

Probably.

 

[a.twiddler]

Although words are what particularly resonate for me, some phone numbers and vehicle registrations do too despite me not being mathematically inclined, and are easily remembered. Maybe it's because they have a rhythm when you read or speak them, while others do not. But when it comes to mobile phone numbers, I can never remember them. I've even had to put a sticker inside my phone cover so I can see mine at a glance. Is it just me, or is this a common experience?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Bases are funny things. The clock isn't base 12 or 60. We still use base 10 to count the hours, minutes and seconds. It's an odd mixture of base 10 and base 12 and base 60. Base 10 is used for normal, low numbers but as soon as they get too big they get put into buckets of 60 which in turn are put into buckets of 12, and then buckets of 2.

I think the same was true with the Babylonians. They used base 10 for everyday things (whole numbers below 60), but they used 60ths and 3600ths and so on to denote fractional parts of numbers. This continued all the way into the Italian renaissance and some of the early accurate calculations of mathematical constants were expressed this way. Maybe pi or square root of 2, not sure. The Babylonians may also abandoned base 10 for numbers over 60 and started putting things into buckets of 60 and 3600 for very big numbers. (This may be wrong in some details I'd have to look in a book to check, and as this is the internet I can't be arsed).

It's the same with the imperial system of measurements. They deal in base 10 for low-ish whole numbers, but then the next measurement up is a bucket of a random number depending on what you are dealing with: 3, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22 are all used.

Quite why users of the imperial system prefer rational fractions like 21/32nds rather than decimal fractions, I don't know. It could be due to an affinity with the Pythagoreans

 

[Once a Wheeler]

This Science Alert article gives a good little insight into the phenomenon.
Of course, the only number which can lay real claim to being round is π — which paradoxically is not a round number. 🤔

 

[GM]

As did I but always related to feet and inches better.

Agree...much preferred feet and inches, in the late 60's whenever I measured something accurately it was for example 12 ⅛" and a knats.