Comment on inches plus coins equals metric system

• Rinox@feddit.it ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t agree. It might sometimes be cool, but with a numerical system in base 10, having a unit system in base 12 becomes really hard to manage. Let’s take meters:

  1m = 10dm = 100cm = 1000mm VS 1m = 12dm = 144cm = 1728mm

  How many mm is 15 dm in each system?

  To make a base 12 system work, you’d need to change the numerical system also, by adding two new digits, like we do for hexadecimal numbers, so you’d have …8-9-A-B-10, where A = 10 and B = 11 (in 10 base), so that 1m = 10dm = 100cm but in base 12.

  Anyway, good luck trying to pass that, I’ve seen people who can barely count on their fingers, let alone understand a new base 12 numerical system. And for what?

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  • Wanderer@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    1m = 10dm = 100cm = 1000mm VS 1m = 12dm = 144cm = 1728mm

    That’s obviously not what I’m talking about.

    To make a base 12 system work, you’d need to change the numerical system also, by adding two new digits, like we do for hexadecimal numbers, so you’d have …8-9-A-B-10, where A = 10 and B = 11 (in 10 base), so that 1m = 10dm = 100cm but in base 12.

    Yes exactly. It’s equally as easy to do both. Counting to base 10 isn’t easier than doing it to base 12 or base 6. But 10 is just a kind of shitty number. That’s why imperial tends to use 12 because its better. They just changed the wrong thing. Metric should use base 12.

    Changing it would be a ball ache. 12 is better than 10 though.

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    • Rinox@feddit.it ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s obviously not what I’m talking about.

      Not really that obvious. The imperial system is not used in base 12. It’s used in base 10 like everything else, therefore, if it were consistent with its units (which it isn’t) it would be more like 12 -> 144 -> 1728.

      Since changing how we count is honestly not realistic, the prospect of having to deal with a system that’s not based on 10 is kinda scary.

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