Actual poster from 1917 that made me laugh. A lot.

Also, those motherfuckers are measuring the weight of those balls in kilograms, aren’t they?

  • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
    246·
    5 months ago

    10 can only be divided evenly by 2 and 5. 12 can be divided evenly by 2, 3, 4, or 6. The Babylonians were right, base12 is superior to base10.

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
      273·
      5 months ago

      “Hey could I borrow a drill bit?”

      “Sure, what size?”

      “Seventeen sixty-fourths”

      “Fuck you”

      Sorry man I think in 2024 you’re objectively wrong.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        121·
        5 months ago

        You’re pointing out the problem in base10 having too many fractions that don’t divide cleanly. This is why base10 is shit.

        Low IQ Base10: 17/64 = 0.265625

        Equivalent expression in Chad Base12: 15/54 = 0;323

        • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
          115·
          5 months ago

          This post is about the metric system, not base 10 vs base 12. Metric is superior to imperial.

          Also 15/54 is in no way more convenient than 17/64, I’m assuming you’re joking.

          • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
            9·
            5 months ago

            It’s the same number in different bases and divides out to 3 dozets(I made this up) in base12 and 6 digits in base10. Our friend you replied to was pointing out that it was a mistake to adopt base10 measuring instead of throwing out base10 counting because base12 fractions divide more easily due to the increased factors. And he was right.

            • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
              51·
              5 months ago

              Ok, I reread their comment and I see what you’re getting at. Base 12 would be better in many cases but I just don’t see anybody switching anytime soon. We would pretty much have to start over. If people had 12 fingers we probably would have started on base 12 to begin with.

              • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
                6·
                5 months ago

                Cultures that used base 12 counted on their finger joints with their thumb. 12 for each hand. Many common folk did that since you could count much higher if you counted by the dozen using both hands. Go from counting to 10 to finger counting to 12 dozen or a gross(144 in base10). Since we still have the English words for base12, you can see how close we were to adopting it.

                  • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
                    1·
                    5 months ago

                    I mean… Western cultures? That’s why so many Western measuring systems are in base 12 and why we have special words for dozen and gross.

                    Base 10 being ubiquitous is fairly new and it replaced bases like 12 and 16 that were easier for people to track mentally.

                    EDIT: And that’s not to say non-Western cultures didn’t use 12 or 16. They’re super common all over.

        • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          5 months ago

          I’m enjoying you playing devil’s advocate here thoroughly.

          Lemmy is so pigheaded sometimes with certain topics that all they see is one side of everything.

      • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
        84·
        5 months ago

        “hey can I borrow a drill bit?”

        “Sure, what size?”

        “0.33333333333333333333333333333333 centimeters”

        • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
          71·
          5 months ago

          Metric drill bits are measured in mm and hardy anybody needs that much (0.33333… mm/cm) precision. I have a set of metric drill bits in 0.1mm increments and I personally might not ever need greater precision than that. Maybe in some lab environments they need greater precision but I imagine once you’re on that level it would be custom anyway.

          • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
            55·
            5 months ago

            0.33333… is what happens when you try to divide 10 by 3. This is because 10 is such a broken number that 1/3rd (a pretty common fraction) becomes an infinitely repeating decimal. In base12, 1/3rd is 4.0. Metric is broken by design because it’s based on base10. Lets take the lessons learned from the metric system and invent something new, something better, something base12.

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
      14·
      5 months ago

      Exactly. What we did was backwards. We shouldn’t have changed our measurement system to base10, we should’ve changed our counting system to base12.

    • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
      12·
      5 months ago

      In retrospect I definitely would have liked a duodecimal metric system, but we have what we have at this point. It’s good enough and a DAMN sight better than imperial.