What base 12 gives you is a lot of common divisors: 2, 3, 4, and 6. Base 10 only has 2 and 5. Base 16 only has 2, 4, 8.
The practical upshot of this is that you can divide things evenly in more ways. Particularly when wanting to divide a board into thirds. Having 12 inches to a foot is actually helpful there, though it falls apart as soon as you get larger.
Base 16 is great when you’re interacting with a computer, but aside from that, not much. Only being divisible by 2 is kind of a pain in the real world.
You would have numbers 0-9 plus two more digits (could use A and B, but any two symbols will do). The advantage is being able to cut things in thirds and quarters as well as in half. Cutting by a sixth is a bonus, as well.
RPN (reverse polish notation) is a different way of doing arithmetic where the order you write it naturally determines the order of operations. Do you know those Facebook memes where people get different answers for seemingly simple math equations? RPN does away with that. There is one and only one right way to interpret an RPN equation, and you don’t have to remember any order of operation rules to do it.
I like base 12 a lot, but Reverse Polish Notation is a mess when you get up to working with polynomials.
With polynomials, you’re moving around terms on either side of an equation, and you combine positive terms and negative terms. In essence, there’s no such thing as subtraction. (Similarly, division is a lie; you’re actually just working with numerators and denominators.)
Reverse Polish Notation makes that a mess since it separates the sign from its term.
Also, RPN draws a distinction between negative values and subtraction, but conceptually there is no subtraction with polynomials, it’s all just negative terms. (Or negating a polynomial to get its additive inverse.)
But, yeah. It’s a shame we don’t use base 12 more.
The metric system should be redone in base 12, and RPN should be the norm for teaching arithmetic.
Base 16 is superior and once you learn binary math, easier to divide and multiply.
What base 12 gives you is a lot of common divisors: 2, 3, 4, and 6. Base 10 only has 2 and 5. Base 16 only has 2, 4, 8.
The practical upshot of this is that you can divide things evenly in more ways. Particularly when wanting to divide a board into thirds. Having 12 inches to a foot is actually helpful there, though it falls apart as soon as you get larger.
This is incorrect, and you don’t understand why base 12 is useful. However for binary operations, hex is great. But not for general counting.
Base 16 is great when you’re interacting with a computer, but aside from that, not much. Only being divisible by 2 is kind of a pain in the real world.
I’m not experienced with RPN but at a glance think there’s a solid argument for it.
What’s rpn and how does base 12 work.
Don’t you still have “numbers” between 11 and 12?
You would have numbers 0-9 plus two more digits (could use A and B, but any two symbols will do). The advantage is being able to cut things in thirds and quarters as well as in half. Cutting by a sixth is a bonus, as well.
RPN (reverse polish notation) is a different way of doing arithmetic where the order you write it naturally determines the order of operations. Do you know those Facebook memes where people get different answers for seemingly simple math equations? RPN does away with that. There is one and only one right way to interpret an RPN equation, and you don’t have to remember any order of operation rules to do it.
I’ve been fully on board with base 12 for years. Didn’t know about RPN until this post. I’m convinced.
I like base 12 a lot, but Reverse Polish Notation is a mess when you get up to working with polynomials.
With polynomials, you’re moving around terms on either side of an equation, and you combine positive terms and negative terms. In essence, there’s no such thing as subtraction. (Similarly, division is a lie; you’re actually just working with numerators and denominators.)
Reverse Polish Notation makes that a mess since it separates the sign from its term.
Also, RPN draws a distinction between negative values and subtraction, but conceptually there is no subtraction with polynomials, it’s all just negative terms. (Or negating a polynomial to get its additive inverse.)
But, yeah. It’s a shame we don’t use base 12 more.