I understand that it’s a logical default, given the whole ten fingers thing, but humans are great at being illogical. Do we have records of cultures who had base 8 or base 12 or something else as their numbering system?
I understand that it’s a logical default, given the whole ten fingers thing, but humans are great at being illogical. Do we have records of cultures who had base 8 or base 12 or something else as their numbering system?
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There are cultures that have use bases 2, 5, 10, 12, 20, 60, 100, and probably more, in at least some of their calculations. You can see vestiges of this today in the 24 hour day, the 360 degree circle, counting eggs by the dozen, and certain linguistic peculiarities (French counting has a base 20 assumption baked into it in very strange ways).
Ten fingers is one basis for counting, and many cultures did adopt this, the oldest one that we have evidence of being the Egyptians. Base 60 was very prominent in many ancient cultures (notably the Sumerians/Babylonians), with speculation being that it likely was developed out of attempts at different kinds of calendars (the 30 day lunar month, 30 day menstrual cycle, and the almost-360 day year). Base 20 was used by the Maya and many cultures that adopted their practices.
George Gheverghese Joseph’s The Crest of the Peacock surveys the mathematical systems of many non-Western cultures, and discusses different bases and how they were used. He emphasizes that lots of cultures, including modern ones, routinely mix bases for specific purposes where one base seems to either work better or fit their worldviews better than another. Any modern computer programmer would happily agree with this, as they adopt base 2 and base 16 routinely.