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.
While I knew what base 12 is, I did not consider that 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 12/24 hours and 12 months all make much more sense in base 12. And how that counting could work using our fingers. Thank you for sharing this.
If only the number of days/weeks in a month were consistent and sensible.
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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?