Base 12 - Why Counting In Twelves Would Make Life Easier

How has the human body made maths more difficult, and how would counting in twelves make life easier?

This video looks at the differences between base 10 and base 12 (also known as dozenal or duodecimal) and explains why some mathematicians believe a switch to base 12 would make our everyday maths much easier to learn and use.

If you liked this video then check out the book which inspired it:

Music:
"Deadly Roulette"
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

[heronimousbrapson]

Counting in base 12 may be easier, but switching from a long established base 10 system to base 12 would be horrendously difficult.

[TheWorldsStage]

I use base -37. It's not too hard to learn, it only took about 111 hours of studying and 148 hours of practicing.

[BorgaFett]

The most common bases are 5 10 and 20

Binary: Am I a joke to you

[physchir]

"Some mathematicians believe...." yeah that's a selling point for me.

[late]

I came up with this idea independently as a kid and I was so proud of my realization. When I learned that the concept was already existing, my intellectual ego took a big hit.

[MindfulThinks]

I had a computer engineering professor a few semesters ago who used to make us switch bases all the time to show us how arbitrary base 10 is. It was a pain in the butt, but I'm glad he made us practice it! Great video!

[gopackgo]

Okay, can you imagine if some parents taught their kids other bases for counting, and then in school the kids used them with the teachers, who I'm guessing have no idea about other bases. I can only imagine the argument over who is right.

[MrBlocket.]

I couldn’t help having a stroke when I saw X and E as numbers and 2x9 made 16 not 18. Or that 6 can now go into 50 easily.

[davidt]

A third of ten is free point free, free, free...

[Intoxicatious]

As someone who works in music and animation, I count in 12s, and some of its factors, a lot. 3/4 and 4/4 time, as well as 24 frames per second in animation has me using the numbers 2, 3, 4, and 12 a lot. But I still like base-10 for math in general.

[aloox]

Part 2: Why counting in base 12 would make life harder

This might get you much more content!

[matthewsmith]

Personally I really like base 6. You can divide it up just as easily as 10 (10 divides by 1, 2 and 5. 6 divides by 1, 2 and 3). It doesn't require us to invent any new symbols. Plus, counting on your hands means you can express the entire range of 0-5 on just one hand, meaning with two hands you can express any two-digit base-6 number, or any decimal number up to 36.

[SKyrim]

This had some wrong parts that make the whole thing a lot more confusing than it has to be.
"Ten is now called do" Wrong. Ten is called dec, like you said yourself. 10 is a do, but the notation of 10 has very little to do with ten in base twelve. And the concept of ten is the same across bases.
Similarly "1/3 is now forty percent, or forty pergro, as it would now be called". Once again this is wrong and confusing. 1/3 is thirty three point three percent in all bases, because you are saying what it is: per CENT, that is in a hundred! You can mix the names like this, it gives the impression that the number is some mutable thing, when the number is the same, what is changing is the NOTATION of the number

[GregoryTheGrster]

Don't waste your time with base 12. We live in a digital age, and binary switches still are the cheapest and fastest way to store numeric values in a machine. Base 2 and base 16 FTW!

[nathanwfranke]

Person 1: I count my 5 fingers on one hand
Person 2: I count my 10 fingers on my two hands
Person 3: I count my 20 fingers on my hands and feet let me take off my shoes

[xcreeperbombx]

I like base 6 better, you can count ones on one hand and tens in the other. This is good for reading from a distance. Plus, 6 has 4 factors, which is close to 12's 6.

[rohitprasad]

In computer sciece, you have hexadecimal base 16, octal base 8 and binary base 2. Once you start adding and multiplying with them you'll understand why we stick with the decimal system.

[jobro-ksdp]

0:50: most common bases are 5, 10 and 20.
2: am i a joke to you?

[Raiver-of-Eridu]

The Sumerians actually used base 60, around 5000 years ago for some of these same reasons. That's why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 12 hours in a clock, and 360 degrees in a circle.

[synthoalkes]

Just makes me think how much humans love zeros. . .