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From: bruceb@informix.com (Bruce Barr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: This is kinda irregular...
Keywords: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30
Message-ID: <1991May16.143819.4798@informix.com>
Date: 16 May 91 14:38:19 GMT
References: <1991May12.065743.15904@rick.cs.ubc.ca> <59829@aurs01.UUCP>
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In article <59829@aurs01.UUCP> gingell@aurs01.UUCP (Mike Gingell) writes:
>Because 60 is subdivisible by so many exact factors. Which is what makes
>100 such a lousy arithmetic base. It would have been much better for
>mathematics if man had been born with 12 fingers.

But man does have 12 counting digits.  Ten fingers and two feet.  This is
the reason many languages have a special word for numbers up to 12 but then
start in on some variation of 3 and 10, 4 and 10, etc.

BB