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Quite right, base 12 is much more flexible than base 10.
We're stuck with base 10 for no better reason than we happen to have 10 fingers -
but we've 12 finger-joints on each hand, Indian kids use those to count and calculate,
quicker than a computer!
And inches, feet, yards are units that relate to our human bodies, which are easy to understand,
not arbitrary divisions of the circumference of the planet!
Well, the fractions are base 2, not base 12. I think the "foot" was the King's foot, right (don't recall which, probably not King John)? You could keep the bone after he's dead as the standard, provided it doesn't shrink when it's dried--they supposedly have all kinds of problems with the "standards" in Paris based on metals, and people keep trying to replace them with physical constants like the speed of light and the electronic charge and Planck's constant which can be measured more accurately. We are indeed stuck with 10 fingers. And it screws us up in binary, because 1/10 is an infinite series in base 2 and cannot be represented in a finite computer memory (and having two states is necessary to avoid having to measure voltages super precisely). I do recall some poor soul going out to 32 decimal places or so, discovering that the result wasn't exact, and claiming there was a "bug" in java. The advantage of base 10 is that the numbers don't seem so long as binary (10 decimal is 1010 binary, 12 octal, and A hexadecimal). Esparanto as an attempt to standardize language never caught on either (and it's biased against a lot of non-Western languages). This kind of stuff gives "scholars" something to do, I guess.
 
Well, the fractions are base 2, not base 12. I think the "foot" was the King's foot, right (don't recall which, probably not King John)? You could keep the bone after he's dead as the standard, provided it doesn't shrink when it's dried--they supposedly have all kinds of problems with the "standards" in Paris based on metals, and people keep trying to replace them with physical constants like the speed of light and the electronic charge and Planck's constant which can be measured more accurately. We are indeed stuck with 10 fingers. And it screws us up in binary, because 1/10 is an infinite series in base 2 and cannot be represented in a finite computer memory (and having two states is necessary to avoid having to measure voltages super precisely). I do recall some poor soul going out to 32 decimal places or so, discovering that the result wasn't exact, and claiming there was a "bug" in java. The advantage of base 10 is that the numbers don't seem so long as binary (10 decimal is 1010 binary, 12 octal, and A hexadecimal). Esparanto as an attempt to standardize language never caught on either (and it's biased against a lot of non-Western languages). This kind of stuff gives "scholars" something to do, I guess.

S B C O
Simple Business Complication Office.
Children count with their fingers! Ten fingers....
 
Snow in Venice, snow in Naples, snow in Barcelona. Motorways in Southern France blocked by snow..
I heard there are also big snow problems in Scotland! I hope Eul has not too much trouble.

'The Beast from the East' they call it!

In my place, it is freezing cold, with a biting eastern wind, but the weather keeps dry.
 
Snow in Venice, snow in Naples, snow in Barcelona. Motorways in Southern France blocked by snow..
I heard there are also big snow problems in Scotland! I hope Eul has not too much trouble.

'The Beast from the East' they call it!

In my place, it is freezing cold, with a biting eastern wind, but the weather keeps dry.

In Bedford it's -4degC right now and feels bloody cold
About 1cm of snow and we get excited by it.
 
In Bedford it's -4degC right now and feels bloody cold
About 1cm of snow and we get excited by it.

In Leeds I had about a foot (30cm) of snow on top of my front hedge. Then the wind started, the trees rocked, the air went white, and it's all blown away. I wonder which poor sod has it now?

PS Just tried to get out back door!! That's where it went!!
 
Quite right, base 12 is much more flexible than base 10.
We're stuck with base 10 for no better reason than we happen to have 10 fingers -
but we've 12 finger-joints on each hand, Indian kids use those to count and calculate,
quicker than a computer!
And inches, feet, yards are units that relate to our human bodies, which are easy to understand,
not arbitrary divisions of the circumference of the planet!

speaking of joints and flexibility and memory (auf Deutsch, and takes a while to open with Windows media player):
 

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I can not understand if 15/16 is greater or less than 7/8 I've to think for one half hour :confused::D
and after I think it's greater but I've to do an hard calculation for have the result in millimeter = 23,8, if I'm not wrong. Using my key of 24 I can screw the bolt!!! :p

Yeah, fractions are tough, but here you can just multiply 7/8 by 2/2 = 1 and get 14/16 < 15/16. Otherwise, you have to multiply the first fraction by x/x, and the second fraction by y/y, where x*(first denominator) = y*(second denominator). If you try to do that in your head because you're too lazy (as I am) to push buttons, you can get screwed up. (Technically, this gives the "least common multiple" of the two denominators in "number theory".)
 
Yeah, fractions are tough, but here you can just multiply 7/8 by 2/2 = 1 and get 14/16 < 15/16. Otherwise, you have to multiply the first fraction by x/x, and the second fraction by y/y, where x*(first denominator) = y*(second denominator). If you try to do that in your head because you're too lazy (as I am) to push buttons, you can get screwed up. (Technically, this gives the "least common multiple" of the two denominators in "number theory".)
And after two minutes I get a very strong headache, and I'm going to take one tablet ...
 
Yeah, fractions are tough, but here you can just multiply 7/8 by 2/2 = 1 and get 14/16 < 15/16. Otherwise, you have to multiply the first fraction by x/x, and the second fraction by y/y, where x*(first denominator) = y*(second denominator). If you try to do that in your head because you're too lazy (as I am) to push buttons, you can get screwed up. (Technically, this gives the "least common multiple" of the two denominators in "number theory".)

Dear Frank you are a really nice person and your explanations can't be faulted, but we, simple men don't like to work too hard on our brain (requires too much energy, and we have to save the planet) so we are content of simple things. And if I have to unscrew a bolt from 15/16 will take a couple of keys and prove that that might be fine. Thanks for your valuable advice ...
 
You've got much the same as we have on the ground - but a vicious easterly gale's blowing it horizontally.
Most of Scotland's pretty deep in snow now, so is much of Northern Ireland, I'm in a cosy corner :demon7:

Malena-Morgan-naked1.jpg Till it all blows over ... Eul is cosy.
 
l'bogo said:
Quote "Dear Frank you are a really nice person and your explanations can't be faulted, but we, simple men don't like to work too hard on our brain (requires too much energy, and we have to save the planet) so we are content of simple things. And if I have to unscrew a bolt from 15/16 will take a couple of keys and prove that that might be fine. Thanks for your valuable advice ..."Quote

I don't believe that 15/16 inch is a standard thread in any system, BS, SAE etc.
Incidently I found that in Germany they were using British Standard Pipe threads on equipment, but BSP is a bit of an odd system anyway.
e.g. 1" BSP refers to the pipe bore, i.e. hole up the middle, not the actual size of the thread.

Metric is a great improvement and for any DIY my choice is always metric.
Great joy, my souvenir from Barcelona was a metric tape with metric scale both edges of the tape, not inch on one edge and mm on the other.
 
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Metric is a great improvement and for any DIY my choice is always metric.

Can't disagree, though not throwing away all my AF spanners and sockets.

I wonder if all the Brits getting stuck in snow don't realise how deep it's going to be 'cos the weathergirls now forecast "20cm of snow" and our Euroskeptic brains refuse to do the calculation?
 
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