- pyrflie ( @pyrflie@lemm.ee ) 47•10 months ago
I mean we really should be using Mayan numerals. Switching to a base 12 numerical system would simplify using the Imperial measurement system. /s
- vrighter ( @vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de ) 24•10 months ago
but why? you’ll still measure things in football fields, elephants or “large boulders” so it won’t affect you much
- BorgDrone ( @BorgDrone@lemmy.one ) 9•10 months ago
I especially love it when they use the weight of an airplane as a comparison. “It’s as heavy as a Boeing 747”. Even if someone had an intuition about the weight of something that large, they would probably be wrong because aircraft are relatively light for their size, it helps when you need to fly. Everything in a plane is made to be as light as possible, so nothing on board of it would weigh as much as the non-aircraft equivalent you’d be familiar with.
- snaprails ( @snaprails@feddit.uk ) 6•10 months ago
Excuse me but the correct SI units for length and area are double-decker buses and Waleses respectively ☺️
- Rivalarrival ( @Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ) 20•10 months ago
A base-12 metric system would be absolutely gorgeous. Geometry and trigonometry would be greatly simplified with a duodecimal unit circle. Our 360-degree circle is a truly ugly hack to make geometry play nice with a decimal number system.
Our base-10 number system would be as ugly to a duodecimal society as a base-7 system would be to us.
- blindsight ( @blindsight@beehaw.org ) 6•10 months ago
On the last point, a better comparison would be base 6 or base 14.
10 = 2 × 5
6 = 2 × 3
14 = 2 × 7Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is the percentage of numbers that divide nicely in the base, as a percentage.
Base 10 has 2, 5, 10 = 30%
So maybe base 3 is the closest, at 33% of numbers being easily divisible.
Either way, 7 is a significantly worse base than 10.
- Rivalarrival ( @Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ) 4•10 months ago
Base-6 wouldn’t be bad at all. “100” in base 6 is 36 in base 10. Their metricated unit circle would have three times as many “degree” divisions as we have hours on a clock.
Base 7 or 14 would require something akin to the sexagesimal abstraction layer we use to make base-10 play nice with angles.
- Infraxion ( @Infraxion@aussie.zone ) English1•10 months ago
duodecimal is a decimal based name, I propose “dozecimal”
- theneverfox ( @theneverfox@pawb.social ) English3•10 months ago
Seems confusing, why don’t we just call it base-10?
- callyral [he/they] ( @callyral@pawb.social ) English1•10 months ago
Dozenal
…ucked.
- Blackmist ( @Blackmist@feddit.uk ) English26•10 months ago
Well you heard them. American numbers only from now on.
Get learning, kids.
- xerazal ( @xerazal@lemmy.zip ) English2•10 months ago
How dare you! Circles!? They must be stars!!
- tigeruppercut ( @tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip ) 26•10 months ago
Gotcha questions like this (eg “should we ban dihydromonoxide”) are supposed to show us not to jump to conclusions, but I’m guessing the people voting no on this one aren’t taking much away from it
- Doctor xNo ( @doctorn@r.nf ) English20•10 months ago
Back to Greek then. 😅
- AnneBonny ( @AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English4•10 months ago
Is that like Roman numerals?
- crispy_kilt ( @crispy_kilt@feddit.de ) 11•10 months ago
It is similar in that they use characters from their alphabet as numerals but not exactly the same way as the Romans. Greek numerals are decimal, based on powers of 10, just like Roman and Arabic. The units from 1 to 9 are assigned to the first nine letters of the old Ionic alphabet from alpha to theta. Instead of reusing these numbers to form multiples of the higher powers of ten, however, each multiple of ten from 10 to 90 was assigned its own separate letter from the next nine letters of the Ionic alphabet from iota to koppa. Each multiple of one hundred from 100 to 900 was then assigned its own separate letter as well, from rho to sampi.
- YTG123 ( @ytg@feddit.ch ) English7•10 months ago
Not really, they’re based on gematria like Hebrew numerals. α = 1, β = 2, γ = 3 and so on
- AnneBonny ( @AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English3•10 months ago
my hebrew is a little rusty
- Doctor xNo ( @doctorn@r.nf ) English4•10 months ago
Roman got it from the Greek too before adapting it, iirc.
- crispy_kilt ( @crispy_kilt@feddit.de ) 6•10 months ago
Romans got like 80% of everything they stood for from the Greeks.
A joke goes: The Greek invented sex. The Romans later improved upon the idea by introducing women to it.
- Doctor xNo ( @doctorn@r.nf ) English2•10 months ago
Hehe, yeah, even their God’s were recycled Greek ones.
- spudwart ( @spudwart@spudwart.com ) English19•10 months ago
You’re joking, but give it a few months to a year.
This will be a republican talking point for doing away with public schools.
- Midnight1938 ( @Midnight1938@reddthat.com ) 15•10 months ago
To be fair the system is hindu arabic.
Closer to hindu १२३ than arabic ١٢٣
TIL
- Midnight1938 ( @Midnight1938@reddthat.com ) 1•10 months ago
Im guessing the “No” makes a bell curve of those who know and those that dont
- Zerush ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) 15•10 months ago
Imperial mesure and Roman numerals fits good in this dystopic redneck country
- StenSaksTapir ( @StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk ) 6•10 months ago
My thought exactly. Arabic numerals imply the decimal system and then people can’t use their grandma’s recipes anymore.
- Zerush ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) 2•10 months ago
I like the Batman unit
- Ulijin ( @Ulijin@feddit.uk ) English15•10 months ago
In fairness the question is open to interpretation. They don’t specify if they mean western or eastern Arabic numerals.
As schools in the west already teach western, the people responding could justifiably deduce that the question is referring to eastern.
- lugal ( @lugal@sopuli.xyz ) 9•10 months ago
But the Eastern Arabic numbers are the same as the western ones except that the Arabs call them Indian numbers
- Rooskie91 ( @Rooskie91@discuss.online ) 14•10 months ago
Ah yes, 2,313 people, otherwise known as a representative sample 350 million.
Edit: I’m not respond to the morons who think someone’s FB status poll is representative of America.
- DragonTypeWyvern ( @DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe ) 12•10 months ago
I don’t believe this is a representative sample, but not because of the sample size. Stay in your lane, high school level science education.
- frezik ( @frezik@midwest.social ) 2•10 months ago
High school statistics covers sampling just fine. Some people weren’t paying attention.
- Honytawk ( @Honytawk@lemmy.zip ) 10•10 months ago
You know there will be plenty of Americans who think their numbers are American and not Arabic.
- TimeSquirrel ( @TimeSquirrel@kbin.social ) 7•10 months ago
I’ve heard “speak American” coming out of one’s mouth once.
- Johanno ( @Johanno@feddit.de ) 2•10 months ago
Because freedom!
MURICAAAA!
- lolcatnip ( @lolcatnip@reddthat.com ) English6•10 months ago
🙄
This fucking comment on every single poll result. Consider learning even the tiniest bit about how statistical sampling works.
- ILikeBoobies ( @ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ) 2•10 months ago
It appears to be an online poll which wouldn’t have proper sampling
- lolcatnip ( @lolcatnip@reddthat.com ) English6•10 months ago
That’s a vastly better critique than just whining about the sample size.
- RealWarrenBuffett ( @RealWarrenBuffett@lemm.ee ) 12•10 months ago
Someone should tell them…
- Honytawk ( @Honytawk@lemmy.zip ) 10•10 months ago
…ucked
- Mothra ( @Mothra@mander.xyz ) 10•10 months ago
Well there’s always Roman to fall back to
- watson387 ( @watson387@sopuli.xyz ) 10•10 months ago
Fucking idiots…
- ILikeBoobies ( @ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ) 5•10 months ago
Cistercian numeral fans eating tonight