On 13 Sep 2007, at 11:12, Mike Stevens wrote:
> Arithmetic would have been a much more convenient thing if the Lord had
> provided us with twelve digits instead of ten so that mankind whoud
> have
> developed a number notation based on twelve rather than ten.
>
Wasn't it the Babylonians who worked to base 60, as it is divisible by
2,3,4 and 5? Hence 60 seconds in the minute and so on.
I too remember metrication, and those little rhymes about "A metre
measures 3 foot three/ It's longer than a yard you see" and so forth.
Lord Orr-Ewing was chairman of the Metrication Board responsible for
these, thus inspiring Bernard Levin to end his piece on the topic with
"I greatly fear that Lord Orr-Ewing/ Does not know what the h*ll he's
doing!"
––
All the best
Bruce
"Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground you cannot think of
moving them" Arthur Ransome, 'Racundra's First Cruise'
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