12,960,000/Historical Note

Historical Note on $12 \, 960 \, 000$

$12 \, 960 \, 000$ is one of the two numbers (the other being $216$) generally believed to be Plato's geometrical number:

... which has control over the good and evil of births.
-- Plato's Republic: $546$

It can be arrived at either by noting that it is $60^4$ or that it is $4800 \times 2700$


A great year of Plato is a time period of $36 \, 000$ years.

If one year is specified as being $360$ days, as it was by Plato, then a great year is $12 \, 960 \, 000$ days.

Note, however, that there is no indication that Plato ever mentioned it.


Sources

  • 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $12,960,000$
  • 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text {A}.2$: Pythagoras (ca. $\text {580}$ – $\text {500}$ B.C.): Footnote $5$
  • 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $12,960,000$
This article is issued from ProofWiki. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.