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I think having 1/4 and 1/3 be whole numbers would be more useful than being able to count on my fingers.
by Eisenstein 3y ago
I think having 1/4 and 1/3 be whole numbers would be more useful than being able to count on my fingers.
- DeathArrow 3y agoAre 3 and 4 magical? Why not 1/2 and 1/5?
- willis936 3y agoThey're all magical because they are small. 12 is a highly factorable number and 10 is not. Ancient Greece was not ignorant of this fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number https://youtu.be/2JM2oImb9Qg https://youtu.be/2JM2oImb9Qg
- Cockbrand 3y agoWell, 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5, while you can divide 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6 (in the integer space, of course). So you can express more basic divisions without remainder.
- jcranmer 3y agoIt is easy to eyeball divisions of 2 and 3 by hand, and get results with high degrees of accuracy. A division of 4 can be accomplished by dividing by 2 twice. It is not easy to eyeball divisions of 5 by hand; you pretty much need to use a ruler for that to get results of tolerable accuracy.
- chriswarbo 3y agoThere are finger-counting methods for pretty much any base. Most are more efficient (capable of counting higher) than the base 10 approach of associating each finger with a digit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger-counting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger-counting