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Having your unit system in the same base as your number system infinitely outweighs any advantages derived from the having a higher number of factors or whateve
by cyborgx7 4y ago
Having your unit system in the same base as your number system infinitely outweighs any advantages derived from the having a higher number of factors or whatever. If you want to switch out number system, and then change the unit system alongside that, I'll hear you out. But skipping the number system and doing it at the unit level is always dead on arrival as an argument.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoIf it were the case, people would have switched massively to a decimal time keeping system. The fact they did not is proof enough for me that using the same base than our number system isn't relevant. It makes sense intuitively because it's extremely rare that we have to go above 24 for hours and sixty for minutes while we divide these time periods fairly often. I would gladly switch to base 12 just to have simpler multiplication tables (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are really simple, 9 and A are fine while 5, 7 and B are annoying) but I am no fool and realise it's never going to happen.
- yencabulator 4y agoAh, the classic argument for why Amurican Measurements(tm) must also be superior, conveniently ignoring the rest of the world being very metric. My personal observation is that nobody divides hours into more than halves or quarters, and .5, .25, .75 are pretty simple. Consider this: 1 USD is 100 cents, and people are just fine with its common fractions.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoWell, no, it’s not this argument because as you rightfully pointed everyone did switch to the metric system while absolutely no one switched to decimal time. I’m French by the way. People do divide hours in twelfth, sixth and third all the time. Thinking in blocks of 5 and 10 minutes is very common.
- yencabulator 4y agoThinking in blocks of 5 and 10 units is very common in metric systems too. The fact that 10 minutes is 1/6th of an hour is not very relevant; that it's a good size unit for pragmatic use is.