I don't know about hexadecimal but some cultures have used a base eight
counting system. You count using the spaces between your fingers rather
than the fingers themselves.
We could start a culture that has a base 1024 counting system. I can
show you how to count to 1024 using your fingers (does you guys all
remember your binary algebra?).
Daniel.
Pat McBride wrote:
Didn't the ancients in the Middle East base their number system on hexadecimal, or
something like that. In the Bible, it says that Noah built the ark using cubits as a
length. And as Bill Cosby once said "What's a cubit?"
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Lynch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 2008/05/21 01:45
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [social] I am not receiving anything from this list
On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 23:23 -0400, Gregory J. Neumann wrote:
Robert Derman wrote:
Rod Engelsman wrote:
Hey Greg!
Well, that's what democracy is about.
There is an argument that politicians lead the people and represent them
so that the people don't have to have a referendum on every issue and
that although accountable to them there is more stability and better
informed government if occasionally politicians do unpopular things on
particular issues. Depends on the view of democracy. If it was simply
about immediate voting majorities, minorities would always be suppressed
and democracies tend not to do that either.
Except that in this case, the
public was actually showing a fair amount of common sense, instead of
letting the scientific community ram a non-rational system dressed up to
look like one down their throats.
Again that depends on your circumstances. If it cost you money to change
you will probably take that view. If you are a student working towards
an exam dealing with several incompatible systems of units you probably
wouldn't.
The meter
Metre. A meter is what I have on the wall to measure my electricity
usage :-)
is directly descended from a bad estimate of the distance from
Paris to the north pole (that no westerner had yet visited, and would
not for more than a century) imposed during a reign of terror by a group
of fanatics whose real purpose was to totally destroy the "Old Order" in
favor of a "Rational New Order". Why this makes SI a "better" system is
beyond me.
Because it gives an international standard that is transparent open and
is interoperable (heard this before somewhere? :-) )
We have a decimal counting system because we have 10 fingers. If we
actually had a number system based on base 12 - and the basis for
counting in 12s is to use your thumb to count the finger joints in your
hand - then a duodecimal system with 01,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B would then
make feet and inches work well but everyone would have to learn to think
with two new number symbols and the arithmetic that goes with them.
There is a mathematical argument that 12 is better because it divides by
2,3,4,6 whereas 10 only divides by just 2 and 5. Since the number
systems are built on 10 and 10 symbols, it is just as strong an argument
to base units on multiples of 10. So your US currency is a decimal
currency system. In the UK we changed from 12 pennies in a shilling and
240 pennies in a pound to decimal currency because for most people its
simpler to have the symbolic number system compatible with the system of
arithmetic. Try dividing £3 12s and 6d between 4 people compared to
£3.63.
Why I should discard a system of measure that divides into
fractional parts far more evenly than SI for my everyday usage is still
not very clear to me.
Dividing it fractional parts is only one part of the equation. It would
be cut and dried if the number system was duodecimal but it isn't so
there is as much argument that its easier to use decimals to represent
fractional parts as it is fractions. Its just a matter of when I say 1/4
you visualise what that looks like easier than if I say 25% or 0.25.
I do think SI's integration of linear, volume, weight/mass and
temperature is a great idea, but I don't see why a decimal system based
on a weird estimate should have to be part of that.
The actual basis of the metre is not really important. Let's face it a
yard was based on the distance from the king's nose to the tip of his
fingers. Hardly any more scientific. The thing is to define a basic unit
that becomes familiar. How that is then subdivided etc has two
considerations, the number system to be used and how appropriate the
number system is for arithmetic operations. Either change the number
system to fit neat integer operation or change derived units to fit the
number system. Decimal systems do the latter.
Computers use hexadecimal because it relates well to the natural binary
number system used in digital electronics but getting the public to
think in binary or hexadecimal is rather more tricky than changing to a
system of units that naturally works with decimal.
Guess I'm just an USian after all! ;-)
-Greg
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
