On: Metamorphosis and Millimeters

[jacobolus]

This PDF is just an example, showing some of the simplification you could get with a base 12 metric system. I’m not advocating this particular design.

In general I think the “dozenal society” people need better numeral glyphs and better names for things. When reading their materials, try to look past the choices of names.

As for the advantage of base 12, try writing out multiplication and addition tables for both base 12 and base 10. Here are those multiplication tables using modular arithmetic:

     multiplication table mod 12          multiplication table mod 10
 0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0      0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0
 0  1  2  3  4  5  6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1      0  1  2  3  4  5 -4 -3 -2 -1
 0  2  4  6 -4 -2  0  2  4  6 -4 -2      0  2  4 -4 -2  0  2  4 -4 -2
 0  3  6 -3  0  3  6 -3  0  3  6 -3      0  3 -4 -1  2  5 -2  1  4 -3
 0  4 -4  0  4 -4  0  4 -4  0  4 -4      0  4 -2  2 -4  0  4 -2  2 -4
 0  5 -2  3 -4  1  6 -1  4 -3  2 -5      0  5  0  5  0  5  0  5  0  5
 0  6  0  6  0  6  0  6  0  6  0  6      0 -4  2 -2  4  0 -4  2 -2  4
 0 -5  2 -3  4 -1  6  1 -4  3 -2  5      0 -3  4  1 -2  5  2 -1 -4  3
 0 -4  4  0 -4  4  0 -4  4  0 -4  4      0 -2 -4  4  2  0 -2 -4  4  2
 0 -3  6  3  0 -3  6  3  0 -3  6  3      0 -1 -2 -3 -4  5  4  3  2  1
 0 -2 -4  6  4  2  0 -2 -4  6  4  2      
 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5  6  5  4  3  2  1

Or try converting a list of common fractions to decimal / duodecimal notation.

[chm → jacobolus]

Here's a table showing the fraction i/n in decimal (white columns) and in dozenal (blue columns) for i=1,12 and n=1,12.[1]

There's absolutely no way I can get most people I know to mix the alphabet and numerals. I'll definitely look more into it, but for the moment I doubt it's immense usefulness.

And honestly, I think the naming of units is very important. Numeral prefixes are important and I think the metric prefixes are quite easy to work with (maybe that's because I grew up with them). Gravyard is a bad choice I think!

[1]: http://i.imgur.com/LNhsEOe.png