4 ms·
Base 16 would be even worse than base 10. It isn’t a highly divisible number, so lots of common fractions aren’t clean hexadecimals. In base 12 you get 1/2, 1/4
by Armisael16 7y ago
Base 16 would be even worse than base 10. It isn’t a highly divisible number, so lots of common fractions aren’t clean hexadecimals. In base 12 you get 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. Base 12 gets you 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, and 1/9.
- londons_explore 7y agoBut being a power of 2 I think has a massive advantage. There is also an advantage to have a chain of the square roots lead to 2. That leaves 4, 16, and 256. 16 seems most sensible of those. You'd end up with a number system where everything is a sum of halvings and doublings, which is conceptually much simpler. Sure, you can't represent a third neatly, but I don't consider that a very important property.