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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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A base-12 metric system would be absolutely gorgeous. Geometry and trigonometry would be greatly simplified with a duodecimal unit circle. Our 360-degree circle is a truly ugly hack to make geometry play nice with a decimal number system.
Our base-10 number system would be as ugly to a duodecimal society as a base-7 system would be to us.
On the last point, a better comparison would be base 6 or base 14.
10 = 2 × 5
6 = 2 × 3
14 = 2 × 7
Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is the percentage of numbers that divide nicely in the base, as a percentage.
Base 10 has 2, 5, 10 = 30%
So maybe base 3 is the closest, at 33% of numbers being easily divisible.
Either way, 7 is a significantly worse base than 10.
Base-6 wouldn't be bad at all. "100" in base 6 is 36 in base 10. Their metricated unit circle would have three times as many "degree" divisions as we have hours on a clock.
Base 7 or 14 would require something akin to the sexagesimal abstraction layer we use to make base-10 play nice with angles.
You're not alone, but the idea of a movment to duodecimal hasn't had traction in a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Advocacy_and_%22dozenalism%22
Also, ancient Egypt was hip to his idea: https://hsm.stackexchange.com/a/2881
Fun fact, you can count from 1 to 12 on one hand by touching your thumb to count your finger bones, as there are 12 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger-counting#Asia
duodecimal is a decimal based name, I propose "dozecimal"
Seems confusing, why don't we just call it base-10?
I love this joke so much.
This made my day...I felt way too proud of the joke for being clever, and usually when that happens some people don't get it and think I'm an idiot, and the people who get it think it's just a dumb joke
I very nearly didn't post the comment because of that, but said "fuck it, I think it's funny, and if no one else does no one will notice"
Compliments mean nothing to me when I don't feel proud of the thing being complimented, but I felt proud of this...
It's a stupid little thing, but it comes at a time when I'm trying to build up the confidence to release the game demo I made months ago. You moved the needle a little bit... I'm going to text a friend right now and have someone else play the demo.
So thanks for telling me you loved the joke, it was the straw that pushed me into putting more of my work out there
Also, I have previously told this joke you may appreciate:
“There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, those who don’t, and those who knew this joke was in ternary all along.”
I laughed out loud, the twist at the end got me
I’m so glad! I totally get it, I love when someone notices something I’m proud of, especially when it’s unexpected. I’m thrilled I could help!
Dozenal