4 ms·
> Base ten is lit and doing everything in twelve feels so uncivilized … It's actually the reverse: base twelve is more elegant than base ten[0]. The only reas
by zeveb 8y ago
> Base ten is lit and doing everything in twelve feels so uncivilized …
It's actually the reverse: base twelve is more elegant than base ten[0]. The only reason we think otherwise is that we're used to using base ten.
0: ½ in base twelve is .6; ⅓ in base twelve is .4, not .333333…; ¼ is .3; 1/6 is .2, not .166667
- holman 8y agoI actually had something similar to this in my notes but didn't get around to adding it. Basically, 60 minutes seems kind of arbitrary for an entire system of time (at least to me!) and then I realized that once you split it down into half, thirds, quarters, etc., it's basically the best numbers to use for informal conversations about time. That was pretty illuminating when I read about that; thanks for pointing it out here!
- ttsda 8y agoThey're called Highly Composite Numbers (or anti-primes) [1], meaning they have more divisors than any smaller number. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number