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Jimmy the Squid:

--- Quote from: valley_parade on 13 Oct 2010, 08:22 ---My car gets 29 hectares per cubic foot!

--- End quote ---

?

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: Ballard on 14 Oct 2010, 20:41 ---how does binary justify Imperial measurement?
--- End quote ---

The great computer scientist Donald Knuth pointed this out:


--- Quote ---mouthful = ½oz.
pony = 1oz.
jack = 2oz.
gill = 4oz.
cup = 8oz.
pint = 16oz
quart = 32oz.
pottle = 64oz.
gallon= 128oz.
peck = 2 gal.
pail =. 4gal.
bushel = 8gal.
strike = 16gal.
barrel = 32gal.
hogshead = 64gal.
butt = 128 gal.
tun = 256gal.
--- End quote ---

Requires US gallons, but as I've pointed out already, they are as old as UK gallons, if not older.

Nodaisho:
And while I could be wrong, it is likely that way because it is much easier to double or halve something than to add 1/10th to it, or take 1/10th away from something.

Or it could just be ancient Sumerian brain-programming inclining some minds to lean towards binary while others lean towards base 10 as made simple by our body.

pwhodges:
And where does the base-60 used by the ancient Babylonians come from?

(We still use that, of course, in our time units)

Nodaisho:
No idea.

But I just realized that in our modern sense of bases, 10 doesn't make sense with our fingers. There are 11 amounts of fingers that can be up. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

This should probably go into a different thread, rather than cluttering up Dovey's.

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