Slashdot Mirror


User: Lodro

Lodro's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
51
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 51

  1. Don't be dissin' b60 on New Power-of-Two Prefixes? · · Score: 1

    Actually, there are good reasons why a base 60 system makes sense. For one thing, b60 can be divided in more ways than b10, and even in more ways than 10^2.

    integer factors of 10: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 integer factors of 100: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 integer factor of 60: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30

    This makes it perfect for time. Saying I'll meet you in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45 minutes are all natural in b60, but 20 and 40 wouldn't be in b10. We tend to think b10 is the natural way to do things, but the only thing magical about it is that we have 10 fingers and toes. The sumerians were pretty brilliant, after all. Its the b10 system that doen't make sense. We can't even easily express 1/3 in it!

    Besides, working in different base systems promotes flexibility of mind, grasshopper.