2002-12-10 What is interesting, is if we had been brought up with base 12 instead of base 10, computer people would still have to use base 16. Base 12 would not prevent the use of having to have a different base for computers then what would be normally used for human functions.
I wonder if a universal base exists that would have the factors of base 12 (24, 36, 48, 60, etc.) and also be practical with computers, which work with powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.). I tried to figure it out, but started out with 1 equation and 2 unknowns. 12x=2^n. I got as far as solving for n, which came out to be: n = 1 + (Log x/Log 2). I guess it doesn't matter as the base would be too large to be practical. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, 2002-12-10 15:28 Subject: [USMA:23887] Re: Measure of all things > Jim Elwell wrote: > >Sorry, Marcus, but there is NOTHING magic about the number 10. If we had > >grown up with 12 fingers, and had a numbering system based on 12 (e.g., > >extracting from hexadecimal: 0, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, > >10, 11...), > >it would appear every bit as "natural" as decimal does to us now. Our > >brains would be very comfortable with it, and using an "odd" > >number like 10 for a base would seem weird and uncomfortable. > > Over the years, I've had several mathematician colleagues (usually with > Masters degrees), who have all commented on the desirability of a base 12 > system, because of its greater factoring flexibility. Of course, if we'd had > 12 fingers and had adopted a base 12 system, we wouldn't call it something > like duodecimal, simply because that term is based on the term "decimal," > which itself is merely an artifact of the base 10 system. We might possibly > now be referring to base 12 as decimal. > > Bill Potts, CMS > Roseville, CA > http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >
