From: cbmvax!uunet!PRC.Unisys.COM!dave
Message-Id: <9105101920.AA06828@gem.PRC.Unisys.COM>
Date: Fri, 10 May 91 15:18:58 EDT
To: cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan
Cc: bennetto-jack@CS.YALE.EDU, lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
In-Reply-To: John Cowan's message of Fri, 10 May 91 10:31:07 EDT <m0jbYUv-0001B3C@snark.thyrsus.com>
Subject: Re: bye, various comments
Status: RO


> Arrgh, scream.  I believe this is an excellent >reductio ad absurdum< for
> the whole idea of 12-based arithmetic!  Note, however, that the normal
> equivalent of the ":" in 12:30 is pi'e (the compound-base point).

Not a bit!  Our whole time system is based on ancient Egyptian
astronomy, which is base 60.  So in base 12, all the marks on the
clock work out very well:

	9:00 = 9.0	9:20 = 9.4	9:40 = 9.8
	9:05 = 9.1	9:25 = 9.5	9:45 = 9.9
	9:10 = 9.2	9:30 = 9.6	9:50 = 9.A
	9:15 = 9.3	9:35 = 9.7	9:55 = 9.B

(Try THAT in base 10!).  Base 60 would be better (how can you say 9:01
in this system?  Answer:  approx. 9.02497..., if I did the math
correctly.)  But I don't know enough Lojban to know whether it can
handle base 60 numbers gracefully (and without having to memorize
words for 50 extra digits).

Perhaps the above could be used for approximations, with the hours and
minutes given separately for more precise times, e.g. "9 hours and 1
minute," however that translates.


-- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com)  I don't speak for my employer. --
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|   When I was young, my family bought a color TV.  Our neigbors, who   |
| were poorer, had only a black-and-white set.  They bought a piece of  |
| cellophane, red on top, yellow in the middle, and blue on the bottom, |
| and taped it over their screen, so they could claim that they had a   |
| color TV, too.                                                        |
|   Now there's Windows 3.0.                                            |
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