30 May
2010
30 May
'10
11:45 a.m.
From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 9:26 AM
On 29 May 2010 at 7:28, dwight elvey wrote:
> Thing in the physical world are fraction of powers
of fractions.
> Decimal is just what you learned in school.
Exactly so! 10 in the natural scheme of things, other
than being a
notational convenience for people using base ten is not terribly
useful other than being able to count on your fingers (the Mayans,
with their base twenty system, evidently used their toes as well).
There is a language in the Amazon Basin, I believe Pirah?, (and this is
not like the "1,2,many" urban legend--there are write-ups in linguistic
journals) which works in base 19. Each finger joint, the back of the
hand, the wrist, the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulder are the
counting points.
In human language, there is no such thing as "the natural scheme of things".
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/