Base-12 Number System (Dozenal) (Duodecimal)

SheNinja

SheNinja

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Well, the dozenal number system has gained some traction lately. Many people have decided that they think the world would be better off using the dozenal number system rather than the decimal number system (base-10) for many reasons, but the most prominent being the heightened number of factors that 12 has compared to 10:

Factors for 10:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 5
  • 10

Factors for 12:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 6
  • 12

How to count with the dozenal system:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X (Dek), E (El), 10 (Doh), 11 (Doh 1), 12 (Doh 2), ... , 20 (2 Doh), 21 (2 Doh 1), ... , 100 (equal to 14410) (Gros), ... , 23X (2 Gros 3 Doh Dek), ...

Another benefit to the duodecimal system is its fractions. The ugly 1/310 (0.3333...) turns into 0.412. It makes it easier to work with halves, thirds, quarters, and sixths, which are more predominant these days with money.

So, what is your opinion, should the decimal number system be replaced with the duodecimal number system?
 
A base 8 number system would totally be better than 10 or 12, but the base 10 is so integrated into everything that there's no way it would change. I mean, America isn't even using metrics yet, and that's really really easy to learn. The metric system also happens to be something screwed over completely but changing from the decimal number system. Its not hard to find other examples.
 
Could you teach me a bit about base-8?

US Customary sort of took a few pages out of base-12's book, such as using the Troy pounds (12 ounces), the foot (12 inches), and others. With the former Shilling money currency, there were 12 pence in a Shilling.
 
How is base-8 any better than base-16 then? Base-16 is more computer friendly to boot.
 
The symbols for base-16 are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F.

There, "invented". :)
 
A change would really be needlessly confusing. I mean sure, a base-12 may be more effecient, but you're going to completely change the entire world into thinking completely differently? I can't see it happening.

Plus, the reason we have a base 10 is because the human species has 10 fingers. You take that away, learning math is gonna become a whole lot harder, kids and adults the same, lol
 
If we would switch over to the Base-12, the finger-counting would go like this:

A phalange is 1 unit.

So very simple, right?

EDIT: Also, the arithmetic is easier to do in your head once you are used to this method. Base-10 got some getting used to, right? (I personally had fits with addition xD)
 
Right, because everyone is capable of flexing their phalanges with incredible proficiency.

The base 12 system is meaningless. It has no practical use, it's not even adopted other than inches in a foot and hours in a day, and even so, math by 10 is a lot easier than math by 12. You don't have to think of powers of 10 being really hard, now do you? Besides, that's what the metric system uses.

And if you have problems with 1/3, I honestly feel sorry for you.
 
1/3 was just an example. The number "pi" is easier to memorize a certain amount of digits in duodecimal than decimal.

With the phalange "issue", you wouldn't be flexing them. You would use your thumb (not used in the phalange counting method) to point to the phalange you are currently on. You could also use your other hand's phalanges to count the number of 1012's that you have achieved, expanding the counting limit on your hands from 24 into 144 (those terms are decimal).

Powers of 10 aren't hard. I'm saying that it would take getting used to to learn base-12. The measurements would have to change, but clocks would be way easier to tell time on. Think about it this way: The day has 24 hours. This is divisible by 12, not 10, am I right? 60 minutes in the day, and seconds, are both also divisible by 12, but these are divisible by 10 too. You could just say the hour, and then the fraction that represents the minutes passed since the last hour. That is much easier, see?
 
How is telling time hard? 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. It's not that difficult. Besides, we already use fractions when telling the time - you have no doubt heard the phrase 'half past nine' or 'a quarter of two'.

Sure, there will be a learning curve to switch to base-12, but what is the point? You claim it is difficult to get used to, but it will be easier to do math when we switch over. That can be said about any base-number system. You have to actually give a legitimate reason why it is better, e.g. something new and useful it brings to the table. The days have 24 hours (roughly) because that is how we have chosen to measure time.

And in regards to having your thumb point to each phalange...That is about as difficult as flexing each finger to point to the respective phalange, maybe slightly less. It requires you to have a very flexible thumb, and not everyone does. I do, but I have very flexible joints and I can't speak for everyone, other than not everyone has joints that flexible.

In conclusion...there's no real good and lasting improvements that base-12 would bring to the table. We would just be trading one system for another, and they both would have their respective flaws. The effort is not worth it because it does not produce anything useful.
 
The main thing that base-12 brings to the able is its simplicity in fractions. 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, etc., are all easier to do and rational, compared to 1/3, 1/6, etc., in decimal that are irrational. This would help immensely in money systems.
 
1/2 = 0.5
1/3 = 0.3
1/4 = 0.25
1/5 = 0.2
1/6 = 0.16
1/7 = 0.142857
1/8 = 0.125
1/9 = 0.1
1/10 = 0.1

All of those are really easy to write in base-10, except for 1/7, but that is hard no matter what base you're using (except for base 7 but that makes everything else impossibly hard).
I don't see the problem here.
 
Wow people sure are afraid of change ITT

Since when has "It's too difficult to change! *whine*" ever been a valid justification for anything ever.

Maybe, and keep with me here, but maybe base-10 seems easy because you've been spending the last decade or two using it more or less exclusively! :000
 
Actually, my argument was I don't believe changing it really accomplishes anything.
 
I'm not saying that it isn't hard to write them in base-10, I was saying that it is harder to apply them mentally.
 
My Discrete Mathematics teacher told me about this, but he didn't say why it was ideal (although he did mention that numbers around 10-16 are ideal because they balance having to memorize numbers and how they add or multiply with how quickly the number of digits increases). Being as mathematically inclined as I am, I figured it out pretty quickly, though.

Yeah, I guess maybe it would be better to use Base 12, but aside from having less repeating decimals there's no practical reason to switch over, it would be too much effort for something that isn't such a big deal. Hell, we wouldn't even use anything other than Base 10 were it not for the fact that computers work in binary (or any other base that's a power of 2 like Octal or Hexademical).
 
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