I mean, some people do have twelve fingers.
Comment on What has he done to deserve this?
ramenshaman@lemmy.world 4 months agoOk, 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.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
roguetrick@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Cultures that used base 12 counted on their knuckles 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.
ramenshaman@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I wasn’t aware there are any cultures that use base 12, neat.
Bertuccio@lemmy.world 4 months ago
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 do track mentally.
ramenshaman@lemmy.world 4 months ago
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?