We would be equally entitled to use another base, such as twelve,for our number system:the Mayans used twenty and the Babylonians base sixty. In one way, the number 60 is a good choice for a counting base as 60 has many divisors, being the smallest number divisible by all the numbers from 1 through to 6.A relatively large number such as 60 has the disadvantage,however, that to use it as a base would require us to introduce 60separate symbols to stand for each of the numbers from zero up to fifty-nine.