Base 12 or Base 8? Is It Too Late?

I didn't realize we were on base 10 (metric). Still thought we were still on imperial (feet,inchesU

Getting the World to switch over to another numerical basis will require changing way to many things. What will happen to the entire metric system that is based on powers of ten. Now for just the pure mathematics, there are a few number crunching advantages to using a number set that are powers of two. Because of this computer programmers are already very familiar with base 8 (octal) and base 16 (hexadecimal aka hex) number systems. But as I originally said, getting the World to change away from base 10 will not happen.

I'll check into it as soon as we start working on the metric calender. 10 day weeks, 10 month years. Just forget about weeks in a month.

And what about a metric clock? 10 hour days. 100 min in an hour. 100 seconds in a min.

Yea, I have nothing better to do.

The French tried the 10-day week under the Revolutionary Government, but it didn't stick.

Didn't France do this after the revolution for a time? Or at least discussed it I believe!!!

Never heard of a "perfect 10"?

We (born ages ago) in the UK worked to many different bases in the same maths problem due to a) The money of the time and b) due to the weights and measures of the time, to name but a few....

It helped me no end in picking up Hex and Octal when I started in computers (also a long time ago!!)

Never heard of a "perfect 10"?

Bo Derric

We already use lots of Base systems.

Your friends in mathematics are just having a joke.

Since you and your friends haven't made up your minds as to whether or not base 8, or perhaps base 12 is best, plus, yes, it is too late, forget it.

We elec engineers & programmers already use Hexadecimal a fair bit (base 16).

Australia successfully switched to the metric system in the 60's (or 70's? Not sure, I wasn't there for it). The USA also tried, but failed, apparently because not enough effort was put in. Now, I'm definately not saying one nation is better than the other, do not mistake me for trying to start any sort of war like that - the tasks were significantly different, with the US having a population 10x's greater than AU.

I was born and raised in Metric Australia, it all makes sense to me. When I got to the US in 2005, I had a few discussions with various locals about these systems. One local was pro-imerial because their 12" foot can very easily be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6, (yeah? divide it by 10!!) and the Inch can be divided very easily by 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 (that's because that's the divisions marked on the ruler, stupid). Hardly a valid reason. Tell me how many inches in a mile, and before have scratched your head once I can tell you how many millimeters there are in a meter and a kilometer. Using fractional measurements is no doubt slightly when doing calcs on paper, but could introduce rounding errors in 10-base computers.

One bloke I discussed this with in the US made a very valid point - why would they change? It will cost MILLIONS if not billions to convert, and what is the pay-off? Apart from perhaps not loosing another mars rover (first one went on the wrong course because apparently one team was using imerical and the other was using Standard Internation, aka metric measurements), but that could have been avoided with proper cross-checking. All roads would have to be converted from mph to kph, all supermarket weights from pounds to kg, the list would go on and on.

So now I live in the UK, where we measure equipment dimensions in mm and meters, speeds and distances in miles. In the grocery section of the supermarket everything is priced in both Pounds per Kilogram (£/kg) and Euros per Pound (€/lb)....!!!

I'm definately not saying one nation is better than the other, do not mistake me for trying to start any sort of war like that

Oddly enough, I have heard people seriously argue that a culture that uses the metric system is scientificually more sophisticated than a culture that does not. It's as though counting with one's fingers and arbitrarily defining lengths by a certain fraction of the distance from the equator to the pole is somehow the achievement of wisdom. On the other hand, this school sees computations that are independent of figer counting, and measuring length proportionally to one's body is somehow childish or primitive. The premises seem to be:

1. Counting with one's fingers is more sophsticated than keeping track of a base 12 or base 60 system in one's head.
2. Arbitrarily defining distance by the size of the earth is "advanced" compared with arbitrarily defining it by the length of one's foot, forearm, or hand span.

The argument just isn't intutively obvious to me.

How do you order 2x4s in Europe? What about 4x8 sheets of plywood?

OK, you have me on the 2X4s. What about the 4X8 sheets?

Yes in Europe we still use 3/4 and 1/2 in Plumbing and I believe all electronics are still measured in imperial with regards to pitch and things...case size is a different matter.

There is loads of different bases already in use everywhere.

That brings up another point. Who the hell was measuring that pipe when they decided to call it 1/2" pipe?

That would be Franky. He drinks a little sometimes for lunch. We're still not sure if he measured it before or after lunch.

Screw pipe sizes were set so that a standard pipe wall produced the nominal size on the internal diameter. perhaps for convenience of the design engineers.

Easy

2"x4"s are 50x100mm

4'x8' are 1200mm x 2400mm sheets

Standard stuff like that is converted to near equivalents all over the place.

like 2' centres on studs are now 600mm centres. Not quite exact but close enough for most.

My nephew, married to my sisters daughter - does this clear it up for you Guru's? I guess English is not your first language, so perhaps learning a second language (English I suggest) may assist.

Er no not wrong. That is how its supplied here in Oz, having "converted" to the metric system in the late 60's early 70's.

There are also dimensional differences between raw cut timber and "Dressed".

What was 2" x 4" is now 50mm x 100mm. Dressed timber is usually about 5mm smaller all round. Always a trap for young players.

Steel profiles are also "equivalenced" the same way, including thicknesses.

steel and wood has to be interchangeable for that reason.

and yes your right about raw and dress timber. some mills in the area stretch that, but there is a standard, but the smaller dress size would be reduced farther due to shrinkage from drying. And the area mills may take advanage of that.....

p911

I was working for NASA in the '70's when the Federal gov't decided we were going to convert to the metric system "over time". We (NASA) and our vendors were required to produce all our engineering drawings with dual dimensions, English over Metric, for some transitional period of time.

Well that dual dimensioning 1"/2.54cm convinced most people that having drawings with pure 2.54 on them was stupid as opposed to having 1". Most could never make the leap that eventually we would change that 2.54cm to 2cm or 3 cm or 25mm and thus normalize the measuring system.

Many also argued that we would be stuck with these crazy fractional metric measurements for decades in able to support old product. There is some validity to that belief in that it would have been enormously expensive to maintain. Every industry screamed about that.

In a nutshell, the mandate and its supporters just went away after about 2 years and we reverted to the Imperial system. Except for those of us at NASA: most of our science efforts were in metric while most of our engineering was in Imperial.

Besides, the attitude is "When you're the world's richest nation, you can afford to be different".

Hooker

woulldn't that be base 18? 8 fingers and 10 toes?

Well said! I also do conversions on the fly, I just don't feel it necessary to change an entire culture to appease someone who is homesick or is just too lazy to learn our methods.

We have ten fingers, base ten makes sense so that we comunicate on comon ground. Us oldfarts that were programing in base 16 because that was the only language in the 60's. There is no reason to go back to machine language, it sucked, ate up a lot of time, and was a pain in the ass. Comunication is more imporntant. That is what all these platforms are about. We can all be retrained to think in terms of a different base but I do not think that would be productive. 8 and 12 have their merits, does not work in real life. Just because you and I understand swicthing base does not mean it is a good move.

Member titles are a fun way to track user participation on the site. The more posts you submit to CR4, the higher you'll rise along the following scale:

• 0 - Browser
• 1 - 4 Participant
• 5 - 9 Member
• 10 - 24 Active Contributor
• 25 - 54 Associate
• 55 - 99 Commentator
• 100 - 499 Power-User
• 500 - 999999 Guru

That is all that it means to be a "Guru". There is no secret handshake and certainly no special treatment.

If the administrators do not feel that there is a problem with a post they will likely leave it in even if one or two people do not agree with it. We are all allowed our opinions.

I am the first to admit that some of my posts have been acidic in the past but none have been written in a hurtful way. I have seen many direct insults go un removed for whatever reason and never complained.

I chose to request the removal of this post because one person felt insulted in some odd way by my opinion and my choice to tell the truth about what is going on in my country.

I wish to make it known that this will be the first and last time that I will do this for any reason. If in the future anyone disagrees with what is posted but does not have a valid complaint then I invite them to ignore the offending post.

You wrote:-

"and we force our children to learn a foreign language in school."

That is the greatest gift that anyone can have, a second (or more) language(s).

I learned French at school - 6 years, I leaned to read and write (badly!) Portuguese in the RN, gave up on Cantonese and picked up German by moving to Germany.....

Being able to communicate in another language is a gift from God!!!

I don't mean to say that it is bad. I am saying that we, in our local school system, force our children to take a single language where perhaps they would prefer to learn something else. My son intentionally does poorly because he doesn't want to learn what is forced upon him and would like to learn a different one that has been given to others in the system. They should be offered a choice.

I agree that they should be offered the choice of which second language to learn, but a second language should be learned. I'm sorry for you and your son that he could not be taught the language of his choice, but life will not follow ones dreams every time.

Of that there is no doubt. I wish that I had had the opportunity to learn a second language in grade school but that was just not in the cards. It would have aided me immensely later as I had to learn several foreign languages for jobs I have had. Sadly I can't seem to retain very much of what I have learned, had I learned earlier I likely would have better retention.

What was I talking about?

It usually not possible to offer everyone the language of their choice in most schools around the world.

Ilearnt French properly and used it relatively often in my early life till I left the RN.

Now I have lived in Germany for 29 years and learnt German "on the street" so to say.....So German would have been a better choice.

With hindsight, everyone has 20-20 vision......

Learning ANY second language is the start of a journey on an enjoyable road.....

Then you put it most badly.......re-read before posting.....

We're already using a base 60 (very compatible with base 12, 1/5th of 60) for time...

• 60 minutes per hour
• 60 seconds per minute
• 12 hours per clock face (24 if you like military)
• Older calendars used 360 day years (12 ea. 30-day months) with occaisional "leap" months or weeks thrown in to get the years to match back up to the earth's revolutions around the sun.

Converting to base 60 for everything else would save us the headaches of converting from base 60 to base 10 when we think through how many minutes are in 0.6 hours.

We also use base 8 for bits and bites in the binary world of computers. Since this one is less commonly practuced than base 60 in the general population, it is less attractive as an alternative to base 10.

Would we rather cut off 2 fingers or add 2 ? I kinda like what I was born with!

I guess we could genetically alter the next generations!

Why not base two? I've always been a black or white kind of guy.

I can see my speeding tickets now....

"Sir, I stopped you for doing 1001101 in a 1000001"

Yeah. On the other hand, maybe we could use Roman Numerals. Then the I-5 in SoCal (USA, for those not from here. California, to be more precise) would be the I-V. Come to think of it, with all those Hollywierd types down there, along with all the drug traffic, maybe it's already The I-V Highway. Or would it be "Nasal Passage"?

Let's hear it for base 7 or 11. There might be hidden advantages....

Many members are mixing things:

One thing is a number system, and a very different thing is a measuring system.

For example, on a CNC you select inches, but enter them and in a decimal format. Likewise, if you need to do some math with them, you do it in base 10 (just to cite 1 example out of thousands).

Weights and measures are ALL arbitrary, either metric or imperial.

Once a unit was accepted as of common use, it had to be scientifically defined by physics parameters in order to "standardize it" and make it refer to a repeatable magnitude. Have anyone ever read the definition of a meter? it has nothing to do with your ten fingers and you'll never find a physical reference to it, except in a lab.

Yahlasit

Since I am the one who brought the metric system into this discussion I feel compelled to answer this.

Guest, you are correct that most who have discussed the metric system here have missed the point I tried to include. The metric system itself is based on the multiples of the common numeric base system, base 10. To switch to another numeric base system will mean that all of the elegance of a measurement system that changed nomenclature with power multiples of the common numeric base will disappear.

As we all know, we can just as precisely measure anything using any base or reference as any other. So we could work with solely binary numbers, as all computers do. Heck, if we want to save written storage space we could even consider base 256 as a numeric standard. I don't know what the other 246 numeric symbols should be but why not chose a bigger set.

I was just trying to show a glimmer of the vast multitude of things that will be impacted by trying to impose a new numeric base to everything.

I like your style Redfred.....

Base 12 would be a natural for 3-toed sloths using all four limbs, but they might be slow learners....

Can somebody get this thread back to counting fingers and toes, or is that to much to ask?

That explains a lot, seems like there has been a lot of trolling that has been engaged in on this forum. Which is unfortunate, but to be expected on the interwebs.

Banning may not be sufficient for this forum, due to "Guests" being able to post with impunity.

Still if they are denied the oxygen of interest, then they'll get bored and move on.