Re: dozenal and hexadecimal digits

From: Antoine Leca (Antoine.Leca@renault.fr)
Date: Tue May 16 2000 - 05:23:02 EDT


Christopher John Fynn wrote:
>
> Michael Everson <everson@egt.ie> wrote:
>
> ...
> >>Out of curiosity, may I ask you what duodecimal numbers are used for?
>
> >Duodecimal math. Elves used it. But they have their own digits. See
> > http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso10646/pdf/tengwar.pdf
>
> Does this mean that elves had six digits on each hand?

I remember reading (G. Ifrah's ?) two possible explanations for counting
in base 12 with digits: it involves either giving different meaning
to "no digits shown" from "the hand is not shown" (1), or using the
fist as a base and counting the raises (sorry, I do not know the words
in English to explain well): between index and thumb, there is a raise
that can be used (this can be expanded until base 60 using the digits
themselves).

Method (1) is:
  hand not shown: 0
  hand shown, 1 digit: 1
  hand shown, 2 digits: 2, etc.
  hand shown, all digits: 5
  fist shown: 6

Antoine



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