inches plus coins equals metric system

TheOneWithTheHair@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 771 points –
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I would pick base 12. Which would you prefer?

base 60 Babylonian gang where you at

Base 60 has too many symbols for the digits

Base 12 you only need two more symbols to follow 9

Yeah but it doesn't have the same schwag as base 60

I mean base 60 would be cool and all, but it would be unwieldy

skill issue

Indeed. I think you don't want a number system that children can't use

Base twelve already works great in our number names, with eleven and twelve being individually named unlike the teens

Hexadecimal is always best.

It doesn't divide by 3

Granted, but it divides by two multiple times. Take a good, round number like 1024 and you can halve it 10 times in a row.

The metric system handles thirds by just using multiples. Like, you buy a 1200 wide benchtop and then you can fit a three 400 drawers under it.

You could technically do the same in hex and the base numbers are all (x^y + x^(y+1)) which represent well.

Decimal thirds suck. One gets 33c the second gets 33c the third gets 34c

We're just lucky that 1c is negligible