+382 What if we had 6 fingers on our hands? would we count by twelves instead of tens? would every twelth number have a zero on the end? Or is it just a coincidence that we have ten fingers and 10 is like our "main number". Amirite?

by Anonymous 14 years ago

It's a coincidence.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

It's completely non-coincidental. The only reason we use decimal IS our fingers. If we'd had 8, we'd count by 8's.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

What prood do you have, you prufe! This is purely coincidental!

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I have 17 fingers in total. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!

by Anonymous 14 years ago

The real truth? People used to perform math with the basic number of 12 instead of 10. Egyptians first noticed its power when they found that 12 could be divisible by 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Nigerians still use this system). For some reason, however, we only created 10 digits (probably for 10 fingers). The base was converted from 12 to 10. So yes, our number system is based on the number of hands. Even the Mayans wrote in base 20 using ten fingers and ten toes.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Number of hands? That sounds more like a binary system.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

...yes... It's a binary system, of course.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

some things cant be changed. numbers would be a constant even if humans never existed. don't know if that's on topic, but it's cool

by Anonymous 14 years ago

implying dolphins could invent numbers

by Anonymous 14 years ago

no, just implying that humans could be recreated a million times, and every time they would discover that "2"+"2"="4" and so on.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Ever heard of the base system?

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Some people do have 12 fingers in total. It's not a mutation, it's a dominant gene that just doesn't show up a lot in humans.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Yeah, but it was originally a mutation. It just spread since it's dominant.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Technically speaking, evolutionary theory indicates that all characteristics that humans have developed to this point in time are mutations. For all we know, humans might not have originally had ten fingers, or at least five on each hand. That could have been a mutation. Mutations are only deemed relative to the species' original form, so any trait possessed by any once-living member of humanity could be considered a mutation.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

We haven't always used base ten. It's just that 10 makes the most sense. It's a coincidence.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

It doesn't make the most sense, 10 is an awful number. Unlike many others, it can only be divisible by what, 2? 5? That's all. 12 is the best, being able to divide into 2, 3, 4 and 6. Sure 10 looks good and all, but means nothing. It means the number of which base it is; if the base was 8, 10 would mean 8 and before it would be 7,6,5,4,3,2,1. 12 would have two new digits that would come after 9, and 10 would be 12.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Decimals are so much easier in base 10.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

They're only easier because you've been using them for a whole decade or two. It would be the exact same thing, except 10.3 would be 12 1/4 and nearly everything would be this neat and round.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

My Math teacher told me that the Aztecs counted in base 60 by counting the knuckles of each finger on each hand.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Sounds like someone has been watching schoolhouse rock.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I love how you made the conversation go from serious to funny.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

You do realize that twelve is just two added to a base of ten, right? In order for the number system to have a base of twelve, two new digits would have to form to compensate.

by Anonymous 14 years ago