Ian Lynch wrote:
On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 10:37 +0200, Daniel Carrera wrote:
I don't know about hexadecimal but some cultures have used a base eight
counting system. You count using the spaces between your fingers rather
than the fingers themselves.
That gives you 12 doesn't it? Duodecimal. 4 fingers three spaces on each
counted with the thumb.
No, it gives eight. A hand has 5 fingers (a thumb counts as a finger).
Each hand has 4 spaces between fingers, hence eight. To get 12 you could
count finger joints, ignoring the thumb, or the spaces between joints.
Not sure if 12 months in a year
has anything to do with it might just be a spin off of Sexagesimal with
5 x 12 being 60 and 60 figuring in circular measures.
The 12-month year comes from the Egyptians, but I don't know where the
Egyptians got it from. My first guess would be because a month is about
the same as a moon cycle, but the problem with that is that a 13-month
calendar would fit a lot better (13 months of 28 days is only 1 day less
than a year).
Cheers,
Daniel.
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