>Forgot to mention the most important factor why 60 was used -- it was adopted a time prior to the modern decimal point notation. Prior to the development of such a concept, values between 0 and 1 were represented as simple fractions. IIRC the ancient Egyptians used a notation for fractions (and sums of fractions) that were restricted to 1/n where n is an integer. One other thing that took mathematicians some time to get a handle on -- irrationals (i.e. numbers that cannot be represented as a ratio of whole numbers -- n/m where n and m are integers).

People seem to forget that decimals are fractions. 3.1415 is just shorthand for 3+1415/10000 (or even 3+1/10+4/100+1/1000+5/10000). Degrees of ten are used as just handy standardized denominators, simply because the integers were already ten-based.

History can explain a lot, even why, of all things, time and angles stubbornly resist and remain divided in 24-60-60 and 360-60-60 (and I assume at least some of that has to do with seafaring, where history and superstition always trumped logic ;), in even most of the world's countries, where everything else is decimal for a few generations now.

So what was the "most important factor why 60 was used"? Expressing [0,1] values as fractions doesn't show any preference towards any magic number. Why 60, why not 59 or 42?