From ragnarok@pobox.com Sat Nov 10 16:05:36 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: raganok@intrex.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 11 Nov 2001 00:05:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 71908 invoked from network); 11 Nov 2001 00:05:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m8.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Nov 2001 00:05:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO intrex.net) (209.42.192.250) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Nov 2001 00:05:36 -0000 Received: from Craig [209.42.200.98] by intrex.net (SMTPD32-5.05) id A0D365B8016A; Sat, 10 Nov 2001 19:05:39 -0500 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: possible A-F... Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 19:03:18 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-eGroups-From: "Craig" From: "Craig" X-Yahoo-Profile: kreig_daniyl X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 12014 >It seems reasonable to suppose that half the time when we want to >divide something, we want to divide it by 2, half the remaining time, >by 3, half the remaining time after that, by 4, and so on. So divisibility >by 7 or more is not going to be a great advantage, but divisibility >by 3 and 4 is. I think that it is more than half for twos, or ought to be. In our modern world, one of the most useful things with numbers for humans to be able to do without thinking too hard that will not be done by calculators is conceptions of scale. If I tell you that person a spent one thousand dollars, and person b spent one billion dollars, you may not realize quite how much more that is in a way that you can understand - if I point out that that is like multiplying it by ten 6 times, you have to hope that your brain easily concieves of how much larger that is. Most people's don't. But if I point out that that is like doubling it ten times, that is easier for most people to grok. So powers of two have an advantage provided people have calculators. But it is not, IMHO, a big enough deal to be worth switching bases. If Tinkit and Bwafc found his own country, he can declare sixteen as default. But for the rest of us, why not memorizing the following approximations of the powers of two to easily think of such scales accurately: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4100 or 4000, 8200 or 8000, 16500 or 16000, 33000 or 35000 --la kreig.daniyl. 'coi doi drata mibypre .i pu temci so'i detri .i mi'o na cafne ka'e tavla .i lenu go'i cu zekri .ija'e ko mi cusku le do nambi .i mi ba go'i do .i mi'o cmila joi maltavla joi mi'atavla joi pinxe le vanju' -la djimis.BYFet xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74