Base 10, which we use every day, seems inevitable, unavoidable and ever-present. Yet one cannot help wondering… Why not base 12?
The first answer that comes to mind—and the only plausible one—is that we have ten fingers. There is nothing original about it: Aristotle himself had already considered it two thousand three hundred years ago, though admittedly without referring to bases. He describes the phenomenon precisely:
> “Why do all men, barbarians as well as Greeks, count up to 10, and not up to any number, such as 2, 3, 4 or 5, from which they would begin again to combine two numbers, five-one, five-two, just as ten-one, ten-two? […] Is it because 10 is a ‘perfect’ number? […] Or is it because all men are born with ten fingers?” (Problems, XV 910-911)
-
A widespread practice
--------------------------
