On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Steve Weisbrod wrote:

> Babylonians
> > (I think it was) used a base 60 system.  Despite having to learn 60
> different
> > numerals, this would be nice for the same reason that the base 12 system
> would,
Thez did not need to learn 60 different numerals because their system was
not really base 60 but every odd step was from base 10 and every even step
was from base 10. They did not know the "0" just left sometimespaces
between the figures.
 > > but even more so. > >
>
>
> I always thought we had a base ten system because the earliest "calculator"
> had ten fingers and ten toes. On the other hand <g> I read somewhere that
In a Polynesian language  18 = "three on my other foot".
> one of the physical traits of too much inbreeding is off-spring with six
> fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot...
> Does it follow then that civilizations that developed a base 12 system had
> a bloodline problem???
No, just 12 has more divisors than 10, and it is still a small number.
>
> Seriously <g>(again) folks, I always wondered why in our "base 10" system
> the first TWELVE numbers had names that were unique to each other.. one,
> two, three etc.
> then the next seven integers (the 'teens) had commonality in their names...
> and then all subsequent groups of ten had common "fist names" i.e. twenty,
> twenty-one, twenty-two etc....
There is another inconsistency in English number names:
13..19 = thirteen..nineteen but 23..29 = twenty-three..twenty-nine.

[In Hungarian the bigger categories always precede the smaller ones:  1 =
egy, 2=ketto, 10 = tiz, 11 = tizenegy, 20 = husz*, 21=huszonegy,
22=huszonketto.  The syllable -on-/-en- means "on" in English.

* Here we have two inconsistencies, too: The 20 has an own root, and 30
uses another suffix than then the higher multiples of ten.  1 = egy, 2 =
ketto, 3 = harom, 4 = negy, 5 =ot, 6 = hat, 7 = het, 8 = nyolc, 9 =
kilenc;  10 = tiz, 20 = husz!, 30 = harminc!, 40 = negyven, 5 =otven, 6 =
hatvan, 7 = hetven, 8 = nyolcvan, 9 = kilencven. ]

>
> You would think they(?) would have been consistent in the ten based naming
> convention.
> Such as, ... eight, nine, teen, first-teen, secondteen, thirteen, fourteen,
> etc.
 The  words                       "oneteen" , "twoteen"
fit better in the abover "logical" number name series.

                                             Frank

  |\   /~ ~~|~~~ Family : NAGY; first name : FERENC; title : Ph. D.
  | \  |    |    Institute of Isotopes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
  |  \ |   -+-   HUNGARY-1121 BUDAPEST Konkoly-Thege M. ut 29,(1525 Bp. POB 77)
  |   \|    |    [log in to unmask]  (36-1)-395-9123 Fax: ~395-9002
`-'    '  `-'    Home: H-1214 BUDAPEST Raketa u. 29. I. 3. (36-1)-277-4229.

There are 3 kinds of programming errors:  syntactical, semantical and mystical.
The programmers have to suck up the users just as much as absolutely necessary.