I did once say to a former colleague at EADS "You know I'm sort of border-line eccentric?"
After he choked on his coffee, he opined that if I stopped and turned round now, I wouldn't be able to see the border-line of eccentricity with a telescope. All I can say is that a love of understatement is one of my more minor eccentricities!
the dozenal supporters of the world should probably have made their stand in the 60s
I think the dozenal supporters would have had to make their stand round about when Babylon got conquered by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. It's been downhill for the system ever since!
I think that, although number systems did evolve independently in different parts of the world, decimal ones were much more common than duodecimal (maybe for the fingers reason that you cite), so the chances were that tens were always likely to win the consolidation battle.
Well... yes... unless someone with a particular bent that way became the totalitarian ruler of an influential (perhaps imperialist) nation, and decided to inflict such a change on pain of severe punishments for non-compliance, it is rather difficult to see it changing. I mean the introduction of the metric system owed a lot to the French Revolution and everything that entailed, and that has still not been universally adopted, despite the fact that it brings weights and measures into line with the dominant decimal numbering system
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Slightly, indeed!
I use Excel spreadsheets to calculate cumulative time. Can't do it otherwise.
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I think your definition of slightly is different to mine!
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After he choked on his coffee, he opined that if I stopped and turned round now, I wouldn't be able to see the border-line of eccentricity with a telescope. All I can say is that a love of understatement is one of my more minor eccentricities!
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I think the dozenal supporters would have had to make their stand round about when Babylon got conquered by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. It's been downhill for the system ever since!
I think that, although number systems did evolve independently in different parts of the world, decimal ones were much more common than duodecimal (maybe for the fingers reason that you cite), so the chances were that tens were always likely to win the consolidation battle.
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May often appear sexagesimal.
The odds of results being uniform
Are practically infinitesimal.
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