<Ted Ashton's comments on Nick's>
> Thus it was written in the epistle of Nick Demos,
> > We have a ten based numbering system - most mathematicians agree
> > a 12 based system would be better -evenly divisible by five numbers
>
> And the computer folk would like either an 8- or 16-based system :-).
> I'm in the middle of a book called _Number_ about the history of
numbers[1],
> and the author claims that we use 60 minutes in an hour because the
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,
> 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
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???

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....

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.

I'm going to have to get a copy of that book Nick's reading....

Steve (I'm not to be taken seriously on Friday) Weisbrod