Of birthdays, black holes and evolution

摘要

As viewed from a reference frame set by the history of science, it is indeed appropriate for us to celebrate R.emo RufTini's 60th anniversary as a most special occasion, beyond any other Jubilee or birthday of his. This is because the use of base 60 stems from the earliest days of pre-scicutih'c Astronomy, when the observation and study of the periodicity in the seasons [1] and its correlation with the Sun's apparent motion led Chaldean and Egyptian scholars to the identification of a 305 days solar year; at the same time, the Moon was observed to follow a 29 days' periodicity. On the other hand, human anatomy and the natural device of counting with one's fingers had generated base 10 or 20 systematics. The balanced result was a "double approximation" (1), with 365 replaced by 360 and 29 by 30, namely the "rounded up" 360 = 12 * 30 = 6 * 60. The first factorization canonized the number 12 (tribes, apostles, amphictyons, etc.) making it almost as sacred as the number 7, also astronomically generated and also with its anatomical input, here the limitations of human vision, which caused, the omission of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto from the list of planets (and perhaps limitations in human imagination, causing the Sun and Moon to be counted with the planets). But it is the other factorization, namely 360 = 6 * 60, which is relevant today.