What has he done to deserve this?

Flying Squid@lemmy.worldmod to

Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1019 points – 3 months ago

Actual poster from 1917 that made me laugh. A lot.

Also, those motherfuckers are measuring the weight of those balls in kilograms, aren't they?

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You're pointing out the problem in base10 having too many fractions that don't divide cleanly. This is why base10 is shit.

Low IQ Base10: 17/64 = 0.265625

Equivalent expression in Chad Base12: 15/54 = 0;323

This post is about the metric system, not base 10 vs base 12. Metric is superior to imperial.

Also 15/54 is in no way more convenient than 17/64, I'm assuming you're joking.

It's the same number in different bases and divides out to 3 dozets(I made this up) in base12 and 6 digits in base10. Our friend you replied to was pointing out that it was a mistake to adopt base10 measuring instead of throwing out base10 counting because base12 fractions divide more easily due to the increased factors. And he was right.

Ok, I reread their comment and I see what you're getting at. Base 12 would be better in many cases but I just don't see anybody switching anytime soon. We would pretty much have to start over. If people had 12 fingers we probably would have started on base 12 to begin with.

Cultures that used base 12 counted on their finger joints with their thumb. 12 for each hand. Many common folk did that since you could count much higher if you counted by the dozen using both hands. Go from counting to 10 to finger counting to 12 dozen or a gross(144 in base10). Since we still have the English words for base12, you can see how close we were to adopting it.

I wasn't aware there are any cultures that use base 12, neat.

I mean... Western cultures? That's why so many Western measuring systems are in base 12 and why we have special words for dozen and gross.

Base 10 being ubiquitous is fairly new and it replaced bases like 12 and 16 that were easier for people to track mentally.

EDIT: And that's not to say non-Western cultures didn't use 12 or 16. They're super common all over.

Well sure, by that logic you could say all cultures use base 12 because there's 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, etc. but are there any cultures that use base 12 for pretty much everything?