> Base-8 is simply too small I don't think so, this is just a viewpoint of the article's author. I think prime numbers are the only real bases, which makes ou

> Base-8 is simply too small I don't think so, this is just a viewpoint of the article's author. I think prime numbers are the only real bases, which makes our decimal system a 2x5 system. When people count they usually say "1,2,3,4,5,<pause> 6,7,8,9,10" rather than "1,2,<pause> 3,4,<pause> <etc>", so calling it a 2x5 system would be more accurate than calling it a 5x2 system. I'm not sure about non-English speakers in this regard, though. I believe the French counting system goes 60, 80, 100, so perhaps they have a 5x2x2x5 system. The way Westerners group digits in three's ("thousand", "million", "Mega", "Giga" etc) could even make our number system a 3x2x5 system. And Chinese and Japanese group theirs in fours so they'd have a 4x2x5 system. In fact, ancient Chinese had distinct words for groups of two above 10,000, so perhaps theirs is a 2x2x2x5 number system. I think humans could easily have developed a base-5 system, using only one hand instead of both, and grouping digits in fives also, thus using a 5x5 system. Even grouping fives in groups of five, making a 5x5x5 system, where only the number 5 is used for anything.