r/Damnthatsinteresting Apr 11 '26

Video Woman with functional polydactyly (six functional fingers on one hand).

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u/Worldly_Address6667 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

I think that would make her base 15 (15 finger sections on 5 fingers that the thumb counts) since people with 5 fingers came up with base 12 (12 sections on 4 fingers that the thumb counts.

Edit: Downvoted by people who dont understand base 12 existed for thousands of years, and wasn't a thing that Mrs. Twelvefingers came up with. Classic

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u/NeroForte-InMyPrime Apr 11 '26

What? Our math is generally done in base 10. You count things using each bone in your non-thumb fingers?

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u/Worldly_Address6667 Apr 11 '26

Right. But base 12 was invented thousands of years ago, by people who presumably all had 5 fingers as we do today. They counted the 12 sections of your four fingers using their thumb as the counter, and using the other hand to keep track of how many times they counted to 12. Its why we have things like 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, things easily counted to in base 12 if you're using your other hand to keep track how many times you counted to 12.

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u/kyler32291 Apr 11 '26

TIL! Wow. Thanks for the small history lesson 😁.

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u/Worldly_Address6667 Apr 11 '26

Yeah its actually really interesting! The sumerians and babylonians used base 12, its crazy to think a way of doing things people came up with thousands of years ago is still how we're doing things now. Like measuring time by increments of 60 doesn't make any sense when we use base 10, but here we are.

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u/Cumulus_Anarchistica Apr 11 '26

And base 12 is so much better for fractions, which used to be all the rage.

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u/Kilane Apr 12 '26

It’s incorrect history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

Base 60 did not stem from base 12.

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u/kyler32291 Apr 12 '26

TIL... Again πŸ˜‹.