Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
Steve Sloan wrote: Not if you routinely have to divide numbers into thirds or sixths, something that's not too uncommon in the real world. Thirds and sixths are pretty common in nature. 12 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, a much better list of factors than the puny 2 and 5 you get with base 10. Don't deal enough with fractions, I guess, to care. Also, by this reasoning the best bet is Base 60 (used by the Sumerians). I'm not sure I'd care to use Base 60 for all numbers. Also, my real world prefers metric and things that were designed to the fit the radix we use daily, instead of historical oddities. and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. I didn't see either of those things in Robert's post. Covert in post, overt in referenced website of poster. -- --Max Battcher-- http://www.worldmaker.net/ All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. --Samuel Butler ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
On Dec 23, 2005, at 12:01 AM, Max Battcher wrote: and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. I didn't see either of those things in Robert's post. Covert in post, overt in referenced website of poster. Isn't it just as likely that it was merely _implicit_ in Robert's post, and _explicit_ in the website? I am not sure that anyone but Robert is in a position to know whether there was intent to conceal. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
How were numbers, such as 45, spoken in Italy, Germany, and Spain in 1200 AD? I am curious, because of my fury that in the Middle Ages, Christian Europe adopted an Indian/Arabic base 10 numerical system rather than the better base 12 system. Base 12 fits the number of Christian Apostles. It fits the number of eggs in dozen. In base 12, you can count on one hand. http://www.rattlesnake.com/notions/base-12.html Were spoken numbers already in base 10? Was this a reason to adopt base 10 instead? In the 20th century, the French expressed numbers both with base 10 and with base 20: thus, 80 is quatre-vingts and 90 is quatre-vingts-dix. In the European Middle ages, did people -- in particular, merchants who kept accounts -- already have a sense of what is meant by 45 in base 10 but not for the equivalent 39 in base 12? (The advantage of Roman numerals is that they permitted easy addition and subtraction; Indian/Arabic numerals permitted relatively easy multiplication and division at the cost of harder addition and subtraction.) According to Bodmer, in the 20th century, Italian has quaranta for forty and cinque for five. I do not know the combination, but if it is like English, it is quaranta-cinque. That is base 10, as you would expect from the symbols. How was the number expressed in 1200 AD? -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
Robert J. Chassell wrote: I am curious, because of my fury that in the Middle Ages, Christian Europe adopted an Indian/Arabic base 10 numerical system rather than the better base 12 system. Base 12 fits the number of Christian Apostles. It fits the number of eggs in dozen. In base 12, you can count on one hand. As a person who has had to work across radixes it is much easier to deal with radixes that are powers of two (binary, base 4, octal, hexadecimal) than any other arbitrary base. There's a reason computers use binary or unary. Base 12 sounds ridiculous, and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. -- --Max Battcher-- http://www.worldmaker.net/ History bleeds for tomorrow / for us to realize and never more follow blind --Machinae Supremacy, Deus Ex Machinae, Title Track ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
On Dec 22, 2005, at 11:21 AM, Max Battcher wrote: Robert J. Chassell wrote: I am curious, because of my fury that in the Middle Ages, Christian Europe adopted an Indian/Arabic base 10 numerical system rather than the better base 12 system. Base 12 fits the number of Christian Apostles. It fits the number of eggs in dozen. In base 12, you can count on one hand. As a person who has had to work across radixes it is much easier to deal with radixes that are powers of two (binary, base 4, octal, hexadecimal) than any other arbitrary base. There's a reason computers use binary or unary. Base 12 sounds ridiculous, and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. Every base system is ridiculous and arbitrary, religious ranting and racism notwithstanding. Case in point: express the (extremely common) quantity 1/10 exactly in binary... Wikipedia, that knower of all things knowable, correct or not, goes on and on and on and on about number bases at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Numeral_system and on about a billion pages linked from it in the right-hand column. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
At 01:21 PM Thursday 12/22/2005, Max Battcher wrote: Robert J. Chassell wrote: I am curious, because of my fury that in the Middle Ages, Christian Europe adopted an Indian/Arabic base 10 numerical system rather than the better base 12 system. Base 12 fits the number of Christian Apostles. It fits the number of eggs in dozen. In base 12, you can count on one hand. As a person who has had to work across radixes it is much easier to deal with radixes that are powers of two (binary, base 4, octal, hexadecimal) than any other arbitrary base. There's a reason computers use binary or unary. Base 12 sounds ridiculous, and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. I'm sure you all know the answer to this one: What do you get if you multiply six by nine? You need to count Judas . . . --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Query: spoken numbers in 1200 AD
Max Battcher wrote: As a person who has had to work across radixes it is much easier to deal with radixes that are powers of two (binary, base 4, octal, hexadecimal) than any other arbitrary base. There's a reason computers use binary or unary. They make significantly more sense than base 10, for most things. Base 12 sounds ridiculous, Not if you routinely have to divide numbers into thirds or sixths, something that's not too uncommon in the real world. Thirds and sixths are pretty common in nature. 12 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, a much better list of factors than the puny 2 and 5 you get with base 10. and all the more ridiculous for your religious ranting and racism. To quote Bailiff Bull Shannon, Oookay... I didn't see either of those things in Robert's post. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
