[USMA:23862] Measure of all things

[Jim Elwell]

Just finished Ken Alder's book, The Measure of All Things. A very interesting and informative read, certainly *not* anti-metric in any way. Learned a bit more French from from it, too.

One issue got me thinking: some professions wanted a measurement standard based on 12, so that things could be easily divided into halves, quarters, thirds, etc.

Just imagine: if humans were born with six fingers on each hand (perhaps two opposable thumbs), or 12 fingers total, then:

* "decimal" would mean base-12
* it would be trivial to convert between common fractions and decimal numbers (e.g., 1/3 = 0.4)
* this would make the issue of fractions in commerce vs. decimals in science largely moot
* our clocks would be almost identical to current clocks (based on 24).
* there could still be 360 degrees in a circle, and it would seem like a nice, round number
* etc.

Perhaps with modern genetic engineering we can create 12-fingered humans, redefine the entire SI system on base-12, and be happy with our clocks and degrees.

Jim Elwell

P.S. don't take this seriously -- this is just a bit of daydreaming