[treenyc]

Short version. They don't really know.

"Although it is unknown why 60 was chosen, it is notably convenient for expressing fractions, since 60 is the smallest number divisible by the first six counting numbers as well as by 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30."

[svantana]

Yet another headline phrased as a question without a clear answer in the article body...

[coldpie]

A slight rephrasing of the headline allows us to apply Betteridge's law[1]: "Have we solved the mystery of why a minute is divided into 60 seconds...?"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

[Vecrios]

There is so much interesting information in the article that people really forget what they came for, the answer to the proposed title question.

Personally, I wasn't upset at all. I really liked the article although it had a deceiving title.

[hugofirth]

How else would you have an article referring to an open question phrased?

[DougWebb]

"We wasted our time writing this. Now you can waste your time reading it."

[toki5]

That's not fair at all. I enjoyed reading about ancient timekeeping and the theories that powered them. I had no idea how they tracked time at night, for example; now I do.

[robmcm]

"The mystery of why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes?"

[sushirain]

Regarding the 12 hours division, they do suggest it is from "the number of finger joints on each hand (three in each of the four fingers, excluding the thumb)".