[LEAPSECS] the big artillery

[Tony Finch]

Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>
> "minutes" and "seconds" are fractions of 60 and have been so since
> babylonian times for minutes and since 13-mumble for seconds.

The etymology is actually helpful in this case rather than misleading as
etymologies so often are.

"minute" is short for "pars minuta prima", the first small part
"second" is short for "pars minuta secunda", the second small part

a small part being a 1/60th fraction of whatever big thing we are
counting, hours of time or degrees or arc or whatever.

Tony.
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