this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
1360 points (96.5% liked)
Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle
7088 readers
1 users here now
A community dedicated to Strange Planet comics by Nathan W. Pyle.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Base 60 is both superior and reasonable: it's easily divisible by the first 6 integers. There is a reason we still use it all the time (pun intended).
Base 420 would be the next one, if human brains didn't struggle with holding 7 separate items at once in short term operative memory.
420 lol [email protected]
I don't think you understand. You want a small base if you want to do everyday human operations. I guess it might be hard for a lot of people to comprehend because you're so used to thinking in tens, that you don't realize that if you stopped dividing 60 by 10 automatically, "60" would not be a digestible base number.
Furthermore, "using 60 a lot" is not the same as counting base-60. Base-60 means there is no ten to fall back on. 60 would be your "small group" number, and that would be that.
Let's say I counted: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y 10 11 12 13...
2*u=10, u0/3=a0, A/7=5
No need to "divide by 10", and we even have enough symbols already. All it would take is getting used to... just like what we did for years over and over in primary.
For "everyday human operations" you can just count: 0 5 a f k p u A F K P U 10... or 0 6 c i o u B H N T 10... or 0 a k u A K U 10... or 0 c o B N 10... or 0 f K 10... and so on. Notice how division by any multiple of 2, 3, 5, becomes much easier:
1/2=0.u, 1/3=0.f, 1/4=0.k, 1/5=0.c, 1/60=0.0a
Look at what happens with fractions:
2/3=0.K, 3/5=0.B, 5/12=0.p
-facepalm-
"Not learning your base 60 division tables... paddle to the face"