From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Tue Oct 02 09:28:21 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 2 Oct 2001 16:28:21 -0000 Received: (qmail 71237 invoked from network); 2 Oct 2001 16:28:19 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 2 Oct 2001 16:28:19 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta2 with SMTP; 2 Oct 2001 16:28:14 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Tue, 2 Oct 2001 17:02:41 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 02 Oct 2001 17:34:24 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 17:34:08 +0100 To: thinkit8 , lojban Subject: [lojban] Re: possible A-F... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11289 >>> 10/02/01 03:33pm >>> #--- In lojban@y..., pycyn@a... wrote: #> Rationality coming into play would have duodecimal winning. Hex comes a= fter=20 #> 60, probably. # #you give no reason for decimal other than tradition, which is such a=20 #lazy and meaningless defense. i've given the reason for hexadecimal-- #it is a power of 2. Why is it being a power of 2 a reason? Why is it a good thing that it is a = power of two. The benefits of 12 and 60 have been pointed out by Mark in several messages -- they make it easy to divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, (10, 12, 15, 20, = 30). I guess one can use traditional nonmetric measures to gauge which bases are= most useful, at least for dividing things up. 12 and 60 are familiar of course. Old money had 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound and 21 to the guinea. There are 14 pounds to the stone (why?!?) and -- lo! -- 16 ounces to the pound (tho we in Britain talk about=20 half a pound and quarter of a pound when in grocery contexts). --And.