Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: hexadecimal and lojban

From: Edward Cherlin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 22:35:31 -0700

At 03:55 PM 6/18/2001, Cyril A Slobin wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Jun 2001 [email-masked] wrote:
>
> > As the specification of bases makes clear, Lojban considers decimal as
> > fundamental. Anyway, duodecimal is the most convenient form for humans
> > (finger counting aside).
>
>In fact finger counting is even more convenient in duodecimal - four
>fingers have twelve phalanxes, and thumb is used for counting. Only one
>hand is used instead of two. BTW, how to say 'phalanx' and 'thumb' in
>Lojban?

You can't claim an advantage for one base over another on the basis of 
finger counting. You can count up to 1023 on two hands in binary (or if you 
are really good, in Gray code, where successive numbers differ by one bit). 
Taking four fingers as 1 each and the thumb as 5, you can do two-column 
decimal abacus calculations on your hands, a practice which has been taught 
in schools. Octal actually occurs naturally somewhere in the world where 
they count on fingers but not thumbs. Duodecimal is described above. The 
same dodge using the joints and fingertips rather than the phalanxes gives 
you hex. If you take off your shoes and socks you can do base 20. Counting 
on the phalanxes of one hand and the fingers of the other gives you base 60.

>--
>Cyril Slobin <[email-masked]>