this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle
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Those aliens have 3 fingers. A decimal system to them is like a system based on 14, 196, 2744, 38416, ... would be like to us - probably worse than US Customary
I mean if they had a base 14 numerical system then a base 14 measurement system would make perfect sense.
Contrary to that, the US does use a decimal system for numbers while the various units in the US customary system do not have any common base.
humans have used base 8 count the gaps between your fingers, base 12 count the joints on 4 fingers with your thumb, and base 26 by using lots of body parts.
Number of fingers doesn't have to dictate their number system. If they're using a decimal based number system, then a decimal based measurement system is still the logical choice.
It does though. Base 10 is entirely due to humans having 10 fingers.
Base 12 is not organically common, it's incredibly rare even with the modern counting systems we've discovered...
The frequency of emergences (based on language families that use them) are: 4 ~1 time, 5 ~4 times, 6 ~3 times, 8 ~2 times, 10 ?? times, 12 ~3 times, 15 ~1 time, 20 ~9 times, 20+5 ~2 times, 23 ~1 time, 24 ~1 time, 27 ~1-2 times, 32 ~1 time, 60 ~2 times
If we had 8 fingers, or 3 fingers, or 15 fingers, we would still be using base 10. It's just that the value of "10" would be different each time
Took me a bit but indeed. I love this fact now
It's the classic 'there are 10 types of people...' joke, but for a number system other than binary
Yes but (1) that isn't the only base system humans use and (2) aliens could use a base system entirely divorced from their body parts. So number of fingers doesn't have to dictate which base system is used.
It partially does, the percentage of languages that use base 10 is nearly 100 and most that don't use base 5 or 20... Sure there's others (60 being the main one that still has an effect on most people's lives) but they're vanishingly uncommon
They have 3 fingers on each hand and 2 toes on each foot. 10 total.
There's no good way to predict what base they'd actually use for their numbers, but there's definitely nothing about 10 that makes it an obvious choice for an inter-species standard line the comic implies.
3, 6 or 12 would be overwhelmingly likely though, inferring from all documented human language families
No, the problem with the imperial system is not what number it's based on. The problem is that it's not based on any number. A coherent base 14 system would be easier to use than the madness that is imperial.