# Switch to base twelve?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 21, 2001, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566 "2001-11-21T08:15:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566/21 "2001-11-21T20:02:35Z")

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I wonder how difficult it would be to get support for duodecimal numbers into Linux…

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**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566/22 "2001-11-21T22:28:17Z")

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But how will I count on my fingers?

I know! I’ll use my… arms!

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**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566/23 "2001-11-21T23:28:44Z")

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There was an interesting Scientific American article recently where the author concluded that base-3 would be best and most efficient system there is.

Although that about as likely as the France deciding they should speak English, not French.

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**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switch-to-base-twelve/94566/24 "2001-11-22T00:46:34Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> And since there are twelve symbols instead of ten, large numbers (like the US national debt, the number of atoms in a planet, or the number of times a man thinks about sex in a day) can be expressed in relatively few digits.

Aren’t most really big numbers expressed in scientific notation anyway? Besides, I’m not about to completely relearn counting over ten (we’d even have to rename the numbers, as all our numbers are named using base ten) just so I can fit the national debt into fewer digits.

> [@](#):
>
> New money isn’t much of a problem. In fact, the UK switched OUT of base-12 money not to long ago.

British money was never in base-12. There were 20 shillings to a pound and twelve pence to a shilling. Under the new system, there were one hundred new pence to the pound, making the shilling worth 5 new pence. Basically, base-12 only came into play for variations smaller than a shilling, so it wasn’t nearly as big a change as you are proposing.

Switching to base twelve would mean changing every bill (a bill that said 10 would be either 10 or 12 dollars) and some of the coins (a quarter dollar and a cent would be the same).

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