Once there will be no more digits to use for displaying price per gallon they will be forced to display price per liter as it still could fit
Once there will be no more digits to use for displaying price per gallon they will be forced to display price per liter as it still could fit
I don’t agree. It’s easy to backseat drive the chariot now, but at the time? A mile as one thousand paces? That seems sensible when you’re measuring distance for men marching and horses or oxen pulling wagons. I can’t really speak to their monetary system, I’d have to read up on it more. And for numbers, well, you can hardly fault them for not using something that didn’t exist yet.
For units in general, though, there are definite benefits to a base 12 system over base 10: You can easily deal with halves, thirds, and quarters without introducing decimals.
Oh, and I did chuckle a bit at your Lego remark. I’m glad you phrased it that way :D
They had to start from nothing, so even a bad system was obviously better than nothing. Developing the alpha version is great. But you’re supposed to switch to the next update when it becomes available.
Speaking of division, a couple of thousand years earlier the Babylonias came to the conclusion that base 60 is a great compromise. It has many divisors without the number itself being absurdly large. If you want something smaller than that, 12 is also pretty good.
Having all of these divisibility properties is nice if you have to do calculations on pen and paper. As soon as you have calculators, the base no longer matters. Regardless, I can appreciate the beauty of divisibility enough to make a spreadsheet that explores this feature. If you want to have a number that is highly divisible without being absurdly large here are your best options.
Honestly, anything past 60 getting a bit silly. You may have also noticed that 10 wasn’t even on the list, as it has only 4 divisors. If 4 divisors is all you need, go with base 6, because it’s a more elegant way to get the same benefits.