• @Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      281 year ago

      A base-12 metric system would be absolutely gorgeous. Geometry and trigonometry would be greatly simplified with a duodecimal unit circle. Our 360-degree circle is a truly ugly hack to make geometry play nice with a decimal number system.

      Our base-10 number system would be as ugly to a duodecimal society as a base-7 system would be to us.

      • @blindsight@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        On the last point, a better comparison would be base 6 or base 14.

        10 = 2 × 5
        6 = 2 × 3
        14 = 2 × 7

        Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is the percentage of numbers that divide nicely in the base, as a percentage.

        Base 10 has 2, 5, 10 = 30%

        So maybe base 3 is the closest, at 33% of numbers being easily divisible.

        Either way, 7 is a significantly worse base than 10.

        • @Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          Base-6 wouldn’t be bad at all. “100” in base 6 is 36 in base 10. Their metricated unit circle would have three times as many “degree” divisions as we have hours on a clock.

          Base 7 or 14 would require something akin to the sexagesimal abstraction layer we use to make base-10 play nice with angles.

          • TheRealKuni
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            21 year ago

            Seems confusing, why don’t we just call it base-10?

            I love this joke so much.

            • @theneverfox@pawb.social
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              31 year ago

              This made my day…I felt way too proud of the joke for being clever, and usually when that happens some people don’t get it and think I’m an idiot, and the people who get it think it’s just a dumb joke

              I very nearly didn’t post the comment because of that, but said “fuck it, I think it’s funny, and if no one else does no one will notice”

              Compliments mean nothing to me when I don’t feel proud of the thing being complimented, but I felt proud of this…

              It’s a stupid little thing, but it comes at a time when I’m trying to build up the confidence to release the game demo I made months ago. You moved the needle a little bit… I’m going to text a friend right now and have someone else play the demo.

              So thanks for telling me you loved the joke, it was the straw that pushed me into putting more of my work out there

              • TheRealKuni
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                21 year ago

                I’m so glad! I totally get it, I love when someone notices something I’m proud of, especially when it’s unexpected. I’m thrilled I could help!

              • TheRealKuni
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                21 year ago

                Also, I have previously told this joke you may appreciate:

                “There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, those who don’t, and those who knew this joke was in ternary all along.”

  • @tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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    451 year ago

    Gotcha questions like this (eg “should we ban dihydromonoxide”) are supposed to show us not to jump to conclusions, but I’m guessing the people voting no on this one aren’t taking much away from it

    • @zzx@lemmy.world
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      161 year ago

      I think the point is less the conclusions of the poll itself, but moreso the ignorance of the average person about what the Arabic numerals are.

  • @spudwart@spudwart.com
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    401 year ago

    You’re joking, but give it a few months to a year.

    This will be a republican talking point for doing away with public schools.

      • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        It is similar in that they use characters from their alphabet as numerals but not exactly the same way as the Romans. Greek numerals are decimal, based on powers of 10, just like Roman and Arabic. The units from 1 to 9 are assigned to the first nine letters of the old Ionic alphabet from alpha to theta. Instead of reusing these numbers to form multiples of the higher powers of ten, however, each multiple of ten from 10 to 90 was assigned its own separate letter from the next nine letters of the Ionic alphabet from iota to koppa. Each multiple of one hundred from 100 to 900 was then assigned its own separate letter as well, from rho to sampi.

      • YTG123
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        91 year ago

        Not really, they’re based on gematria like Hebrew numerals. α = 1, β = 2, γ = 3 and so on

      • Doctor xNo
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        41 year ago

        Roman got it from the Greek too before adapting it, iirc.

        • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Romans got like 80% of everything they stood for from the Greeks.

          A joke goes: The Greek invented sex. The Romans later improved upon the idea by introducing women to it.

          • Doctor xNo
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            21 year ago

            Hehe, yeah, even their God’s were recycled Greek ones.

    • @FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world
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      81 year ago

      How did they get mixed? I see 1 in arabic and 2 and 3 in Hindu. Is there a good place to start reading or watching about this in your opinion? If not, I’m just gonna YouTube the history of numbers and see where I land

      • @dukk@programming.dev
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        91 year ago

        IIRC Hindus invented this number system (with glyphs for 0-9), and then the Arabs starting using it. Eventually the west started using them and credited the Arabs.

        As for how they are written, everyone used the same shapes, and then they probably just ended up changing over time (“Hmm…how do I write that number again? Oh whatever I’ll just make it up”)

        Feel free to do your own research though.

        • @Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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          31 year ago

          IIRC Hindus didn’t have a “proper” 0, and Arabs did, which I guess is the reason why they got the credit

          • @dukk@programming.dev
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            61 year ago

            Zero was (in its modern form) invented in India. It’s pretty fundamental to the concept of Hindu-Arabic numerals too: it’s how we represent numbers such as 10, 100, and so on.

            • @Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yeah after some quick googling it looks like I’m wrong. I’m quite sure that’s what I was taught in school though, so blame my teacher !

              Basically I was taught that Hindus invented the 0 for base-10 numerals, but didn’t actually use it for maths (e.g 0*x = 0), whereas Arab mathematicians did.

      • @jdf038@mander.xyz
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        21 year ago

        I’d go on a youtube journey. I’m sure you’ll find some cool linguistics videos about it

      • @Midnight1938@reddthat.com
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        11 year ago

        1 and 9 are the only ones that seem more arabic than hindu. Hindu gets १ and ९. Everything else is pretty close to source.

  • @Ulijin@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    In fairness the question is open to interpretation. They don’t specify if they mean western or eastern Arabic numerals.

    As schools in the west already teach western, the people responding could justifiably deduce that the question is referring to eastern.

  • @Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    1 year ago

    Ah yes, 2,313 people, otherwise known as a representative sample 350 million.

    Edit: I’m not respond to the morons who think someone’s FB status poll is representative of America.