On 3 February 2015 at 13:09, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> LizR wrote: > >> I think English, French, German all start composite numbers around 13? >> (Maybe a Christian influence?) >> I'm not sure you can deduce base 2 from "half-eyed" etc. And I imagine 5 >> was given a different design because it makes a full hand, so to speak. >> I imagine types of music that evolved would require some analysis of how >> it can be made, primitively? I guess everyone recognises that notes an >> octave apart sound "similar" (unfortunately we can't check if that's also >> true for colours - yet). Hm. >> > > > Maybe because base 12 is more sensible than base 10? The Babylonians, who > had something to do with our numeral system, worked in base 60. Which is > why we have 360 degrees in a circle, etc. > > That's a damn good point. So the fact that the teens start after 12 is a sort of tacit admission that base 12 is more convenient (as I suppose are things like eggs coming in dozens - not to mention "six of one, half a dozen of the other" "six of the best" etc). Maybe the authors of the Christian story took that on board, rather than vice versa. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
