• @dfc09@lemmy.world
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    82 years ago

    12 is more divisible than 10. 10 can only be cut into 5’s and 2’s, 12 has 2, 3, 4, and 6.

    • AzureKevin
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      62 years ago

      Similar reason why 360 deg is a full circle and time is kept in 12s and 60s.

      • JC1
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        92 years ago

        Works with base 12 too, look: 10 100 1000 10000 100000 etc.

      • @candybrie@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        That would be the case for any base system. Do you know what a base system is? It’s basically how many values before you go to the next place. So base 2, or binary, is 0 and 1. Counting goes 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, … Base 16 is generally 0-F. Counting goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F, 20,…

      • @WaterSword@lemmy.world
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        32 years ago

        The way base 12 would work is that you’d add 2 characters and you would write “12” as 10. Which looks really confusing because we’re all used to base 10. If you were then to do 1010 in base 12 (so in base10 that would be 1212) you’d get 100 (144 in base10) so this still stands whatever base you use.

      • @dfc09@lemmy.world
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        32 years ago

        True! And that’s probably why we use base 10, also we have 10 fingers. But that’s usually the argument for base 12. I think we do ok using it in just certain cases, like time and inches.