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(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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"Why do they use the much more complicated system?" "Nobody actually knows."
I'm not defending it, but it's because 12 has more factors than 10
10 has 2 and 5
But 12 has 2,3,4,6
So 1/2 ft, 1/3 ft, 1/4ft and 1/6 ft all have a whole number of inches
Using a base12 system would only make sense if we all started counting in base12 too.
If enough people want that, i'd be down to start counting in base12, but i don't think many people will lol.
You could start by calling it twelve instead of 12.
To keep things as simple/intuitive as they are today, we'd need two new symbols to represent the additional numbers. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,§,∆,10
Of course it would be confusing as all hell for anyone alive today.
With hexadecimal we typically use a-f for the remaining numbers. We probably would use something like this for base 12:
012345679ab
Of course everyone knows the correct base to use is 2. Or as we call it, base 10.
Actually, come to think of it, it would always be 10 in the base that it is.
Yes, 10 can be any number if you change the base. Non-integer bases are weird, but a few (like base φ) see some use.