Fact: 12, 24, 60, these are the big numbers of your everyday life. These are surely different from the nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar. Just why is that? You may have questioned why do we, users of a base 10 system of numbers, seem so dedicated to the dozen (12), the 24 hour clock ( = 2 x 12), the minute (= 60 seconds), and the hour (= 60 minutes). The answer lies in divisibility. Clearly, a dozen (12) is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. This means you can ask for a quarter dozen, third of a dozen, half a dozen, etc. The math is simple. If the basic multiple were ten (10 = 2 x 5) we could only do a half or a fifth. That would be it. For the day (24 hours), we can divide the number of hours by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12. This allows a half day, a third of a day (typical shift), a sixth of a day (= 4 hours - the morning shift), and more. For an hour (60 minutes) we can divide by 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 20, 30. This allows a half hour, a quarter hour, a third of an hour, and more. The
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