RE: Mathematics An Alien Language?
March 16, 2015 at 6:40 pm
(This post was last modified: March 16, 2015 at 6:49 pm by Smaug.)
(March 16, 2015 at 6:09 pm)Surgenator Wrote: The human species have used base 60, and 20 in the past. Computers use base 8,16,32, or 64. Some electronics use base 14. So the number of fingers or tentacles doesn't necessarily lead to the base people use.
Speaking of the original numeral systems, they were mostly based on fingers of course. The most common ones were with bases of 5 or 10. These systems were used practically world-wide. Good to know that these first systems lacked zero. Less common were those with bases of 20 and 25 (used by some Indian tribes as far as I remember). There also was a Chinese system based on counting each finger's phalanx bones and joints (thus each finger was equal to five).
The system with base 60 was in fact a unique one and originated in Sumer. Sumerians used both finger-based decimal system, base 12 system and this one. Base 60 system was initially used for astronomical purposes.
Among the uncommon historical systems it's good to note the aformentioned Sumerian base 12 system. 12 has more denominators than 10 which makes this system somewhat more attractive for the arythmetists. In 18-19 centuries there were discussions between some of the mathematicians who dealt in arithmetics and Number Theory that it would've been better to adopt this system as standard but it was historically and practically too late.
Speaking of all other systems mentioned (base 2, 16 etc.) they are historically secondary to common ones that has been just mentioned above. These systems may have had limited use in distant past but the main reason of their ascendance is the developement of digital computers.
