A community for people who enjoy using base twelve and prefer it over base ten

  • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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    4 years ago

    I didn’t know there was a name for proponents of base 12 systems. There are dozens of us, dozens!

  • ksynwa@lemmy.ml
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    4 years ago

    Sorry if this is not the right place to ask this but why would someone prefer base twelve?

    • testman@lemmy.ml
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      4 years ago

      Probably because same reason that day is currently split into 24 (12*2) hours.

      12 is nicely divisible by 4 numbers (6, 4, 3, 2), while 10 is only by what, just number 5?

      • Katie AmpersandOP
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        4 years ago

        Ten is also divisible by 2

        In base ten, you can tell when a number is divisible by 2, 5 and ten by looking only at the last number (if it ends on 2, 4, 6, 8, 0 its divisible by 2; if it ends on 5 or 0 its divisible by 5, if it ends on 0 its divisible by ten)

        In dozenal, you can do this with 2,3,4,6 and twelve

  • testman@lemmy.ml
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    4 years ago

    I’m interested, what are some other similar / related systems.

    I am aware of metric time (one day is 10 units of time) and tau (pi*2).

    Well, probably some more, but I can’t remember them right now.

    • Katie AmpersandOP
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      3 years ago

      The problem with “duodecimal” is that it’s in base ten, which makes it unfitting for a community centered around replacing base ten

      • X51@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        I hate to break the news to you, but a “dozen” is defined as a “group of 12” which is also a reference to Base-10. You might need to come up with a new word that doesn’t reference Base-10. The inherent problem with switching to Base-12 is that we only have 10 fingers. If you switch to Base-12, 90% of the Earths population is going to be too stupid to count to 12. If we weren’t wearing shoes, I think people could figure out how to count to 20, but Base-20 would not have as many advantages as Base-12.

        • Katie AmpersandOP
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          3 years ago
          • you can also say that a dozen is a group of 1100, does that mean that a dozen is a reference to binary? of course not, that doesn’t make any sense. just because you can use decimal digits to write a definition doesn’t make it a decimal-centric definition. duodecimal is decimal-centric not because of its definition, but because it’s literally “two(duo) ten(decimal)”

          • there are a lot of ways to count to 12 with only two hands. some with only one hand

          • X51@lemmy.ml
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            3 years ago

            All the dictionary definitions of these words use Base-10 references. You need to rewrite the definitions and have them accepted into the human language globally if you want something that disregards Base-10. Personally, I think “Dozenal” sounds uneducated. The wikipedia redirects to Duodecimal. I am inclined to believe Base-12 does have many advantages over Base-10.

            • Katie AmpersandOP
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              3 years ago

              All the dictionary definitions for the word dozen say “a group of 12”, which isn’t decimal-centric at all. Like I said, being able to express a definition with decimal digits doesn’t make it a decimal definition. I could just as easily say that it’s “a group of 20”. The definition doesn’t change, it’s just that I’m using base 6 now. Does this mean that it’s a base 6 definition? No, it just means that I can use base six to express it

              Anyhow, doesn’t seem like this is going anywhere lol. I guess it’s just a matter of which words you prefer