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A comment on Preferred number. Parent comment

Re:Preferred number by mikeash on Thursday July 30, 2015 @09:19PM (#9979389)
I also thought he was full of it, thinking he was advocating for a base-12 system of units. But upon further thought, it's apparent that he's advocating for a base 12 number system, and then a base-12 system of units would come naturally from that.

Base 12 could be a great number system, but it's impossible to switch now.

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Re:Preferred number by hyperpallium on Friday July 31, 2015 @02:18AM (#9980207)
That's what they said when we switched from the 12 inch foot to the meter!
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Re:Preferred number by mikeash on Friday July 31, 2015 @01:15PM (#9982930)
Switching measurement systems is tough, but switching number systems would be about a million times harder. (Or about 12^5.5 times harder, if you prefer.) I have trouble imagining where you'd even start....
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Re:Preferred number by hyperpallium on Saturday August 01, 2015 @02:17PM (#9988049)
True, but my point was that imperial had those benefits of divisibility, yet we switched away from it...
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Re:Preferred number by mikeash on Saturday August 01, 2015 @02:44PM (#9988195)
Because it conflicted with our number system, and we (mostly...) decided that harmony with the number system was better than divisibility. If both were base 12, there wouldn't be any conflict.
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