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My confession

Dozenalism...

  • is bawse.

    Votes: 2 22.2%

  • is dumb.

    Votes: 5 55.6%

  • huh?

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • Total voters
    9
Enes CanTear You Apart said:
However, when it comes to actual counting, the majority of the languages are based on powers of ten. It stands like it was a natural evolution of the human-numbers relationship.
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Actually. there is a reason we don't say oneteen or twoteen. Many languages counted in twelves.

After thinking on it a little bit more, I think dozenal system has no advantage in math at all except very simple arithmetic. Other than arithmetic, especially in higher math there would be zero difference.
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Another advantage would be in the unit circle.(pr any circle for that matter) besides mathematicians would be fine with any base, this would make math more accessible to the average person(after fully implemented of course)

The metric system wouldn't work with a base-12, and the metric system is incredible compared to the english/imperial system. We here in the US will HOPEFULLY, EVENTUALLY, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY convert to the metric system someday.
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The only advantage the metric system has is that it uses the same base that people use to compute that is it. you can not divide a liter by 3 or 4.(or any other unit in metric) those are 2 of the most common fractions the everyday person would use. I agree that America should align our measurement and counting systems. I think an alien that first came into contact with humanity would laugh at the absurdity of using ten as our number base.
 
moevillini said:
Really we should use Base SIX because six is both the sum and the product of the first three numbers.
1+2+3=6
1*2*3=6


Therefore SIX is a SPECIAL number that should be given special privileges.
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another advantage to base twelve is the increased number with fewer digits. for example an area code would cover more phones. a power in scientific notation would cover a larger number. Base 6 would have the opposite effect and it can't be evenly divided by 4.
 
heyhey said:
Actually. there is a reason we don't say oneteen or twoteen. Many languages counted in twelves.
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Actually, it comes from Proto-Germanic words and they are certainly not signs of a dozenal system. Again, vast majority of the languages are based on decimal. Some are based on 8, some are 20 and some are 12 and so on.
Germanic languages have special words for 11 and 12, such as eleven and twelve in English, which are often misinterpreted as vestiges of a duodecimal system. However, they are considered to come from Proto-Germanic *ainlif and *twalif (respectively one left and two left), both of which were decimal.
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heyhey said:
Another advantage would be in the unit circle.(pr any circle for that matter) besides mathematicians would be fine with any base, this would make math more accessible to the average person(after fully implemented of course)
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Agreed on that.


heyhey said:
The only advantage the metric system has is that it uses the same base that people use to compute that is it. you can not divide a liter by 3 or 4.(or any other unit in metric) those are 2 of the most common fractions the everyday person would use. I agree that America should align our measurement and counting systems. I think an alien that first came into contact with humanity would laugh at the absurdity of using ten as our number base.
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I agree on why metric system is easy and as I said, it could have been fixed according to the dozenal system too and we would be perfectly fine with that.

The thing I can't agree is the absurdity of the decimal system. Just that we can't divide 10 to 3 or things like that doesn't make decimal absurd. Actually decimal and duodecimal(dozenal) are both perfectly fine and natural bases and none of them is a real trouble for an average human mind. To an alien or a human, they are both just fine.

Btw, if I had the power to change it all all of a sudden(with metric system fixed for dozenal) with all the things in decimal along with people's minds, I would change it to dozenal because I like it slightly better. But since I can't do that, nor anyone, why would be bother with it?

Except, being marginal about something is always fun and being a dozenalist would be fun too, of course. So I'm cool with it. It's definitely not dumb, If I refer to your poll.
 
Enes CanTear You Apart said:
Actually, it comes from Proto-Germanic words and they are certainly not signs of a dozenal system. Again, vast majority of the languages are based on decimal. Some are based on 8, some are 20 and some are 12 and so on.
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Right. I wasn't trying to infer that there was a base system at the onset of these languages. Originally people did count to twelve(and no higher) that is why twelve is the last number with an independent name. Twelve was very useful for the math starved minds of those times.

linkhttps://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-18923,00.html
Quote from the web
NUMBERS: Why don't we say 'oneteen' and 'twoteen' instead of eleven and twelve? This excerpt from English Language Blog explains it all...interesting!

As any English learner knows there is no number ‘one-teen’ or ‘two-teen’, we say “eleven” and “twelve” in English, and then begin counting again with “thirteen”, “fourteen”, etc. Why is this? Well, before Napoleon’s France adopted the decimal system most people based their counting systems on a base-12 system, including the English speaking world. A base-12 system might be considered more difficult to work with today, but it is in fact more flexible than a base-10 system, which is why so many societies used a base-12 system in the past. (For example: Ten can be divided by itself, five and two, where as twelve, can be divided by itself, six, four, three and two; giving two more possibilities including thirds and quarters which are very useful in everyday life.) Napoleon thought a base-10 system was better though and that changed how much of Europe viewed numbers from then forward. The names of the modern day numbers “eleven” and “twelve” in English come from the Old Norse language (which used a base-12 system) “eleven” was ‘elleve’ and “twelve” was ‘tolv’.
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heyhey, you are a hardcore dozenalist, aren't you?

I hope you're aware that both you and me now are being noticed as total nerds in this thread.
 
Logic and reason be damned.

If we can't get countries to adopt the metric system (which makes perfect sense in a base-10 society), how in the hell would we convince the world to change to base-12??

Live in the now. :)
 
Three points.
1. NBA : The game has quarters, not fifths. Each quarter has 12 minutes, not 10.
2. I don't understand OP's arguments.
3. Most music is built upon repetitions of 3 or 4 beats.
Like basketball games, a piece of music is often made up of 48 measures.
 
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