The Mayans used vigesimal (base 20), which you can count to on one hand.
General / Off-Topic Is there a link between 10 fingers - base 10 maths - and the universe?
- Thread starter CMDR Pausanias
- Start date
Wasn't the old English currency Pounds, shillings and pence based on that?
Not that I'm old enough to remember you understand.....
That's because they wore sandals...
Ian Phillips
Volunteer Moderator
So, given a correlation between items of clothing and numeric base system, was there ever a culture that used base 21?
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
From http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/currency/PreDecimal/predecimal.htm
Plus, as my mum pointed out no foreign traveller to Britain could work it out, so we ripped them off mercilessly.
See, someone agrees!
100 can be subdivided into as many divisions and most more useful, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/10
Think you'll find the rationale for the base 12 ancient Egypt. They used sun dials to divide up the day into 10 parts, plus 2 twilight periods. It was later that the day was divided into 24. But the significance of 12 in the measurement of time was established.
It has been suggested that Roman soldiers may have been paid by the hour and so a full day would have amounted to 12 units of currency.
The decimal system was introduced in Most of Europe during the Napoleonic period. I recall, while working in the Netherlands, seeing an announcement of some baby being born, it's weight being given in Pones. (If it wasn't that exactly, it was near to it). I asked and was told that, when baby weight is announced, it is usually in the old measurements. I heard from others, that similar sentimentality exists in most European countries. The British Isles refused to accept decimal as a rejection of Napoleonic influence. Hence the archaic systems.
Last edited:
Keplar came up with his laws of planetary movement without coventional computers, hex or binary!
Yep we probably use base ten as we have ten digits on our hands.
12 as mention is much better and was also a digital thing: watch (older) middle eastern count and they use the thumb and phalanges to count on one hand whilst we clumsily stick digits out.
Very impressive when you see it and makes infinitely more sense.
In any case, both 12 and 10 are digital.
Nothing to do with the universe or anything else though from what I can ascertain.
12 as mention is much better and was also a digital thing: watch (older) middle eastern count and they use the thumb and phalanges to count on one hand whilst we clumsily stick digits out.
Very impressive when you see it and makes infinitely more sense.
In any case, both 12 and 10 are digital.
Nothing to do with the universe or anything else though from what I can ascertain.
I'm an old-school kind of guy. Give me ancient Babylonian sexagesimal, base 60, any day -- not this made in China base 10 stuff. Then I know how many minutes and seconds have gone by or where I am on a circle.