So the idea for this thread was sort of prompted by the Duodecimal thread, but I think it merited being it's own thing; I for one am very happy with the Base 10 counting system and think we should go even further, instituting base 10 systems and "decimalization" in all parts of our lives. For example, I have been a long-time supporter of using the Metric system for scientific purposes and measurements - but have had the bad fortune of living under the imperial system of measure all my life. So here's hoping that the United States eventually gives in and adopts metric, even if it takes a few more decades. Other places where I have less hope, but in an ideal world would so want to happen, are in time keeping and calendars. I am a big fan of the French Republican Calendar of the late 18th century that was implemented in France but unfortunately never caught on. It basically consisted of 10 hour days, 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute, 10 days per week, 3 weeks to a month of exactly 30 days, and still 12 months per year (it's hard to go with 10's all the way since humans cant change the length of a year) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar So those are my opening thoughts and examples of decimalization. Does anyone else know of places where base 10 could be used and isn't? Or perhaps any things you like (or dislike) about base 10? why certain things in metric or decimal type systems is awesome or bad in your opinion?
I think if the US adopted the metric system I would explode with happiness... twice. It would make a whole lot easier for me.
It's only a matter of time before the US implements it and Imperial is forgotten. I love the metric system personally. There are many problems with base 10 but I feel I would have trouble transitioning to other bases.
What I think would speed up the process is if the government would actually commit to using metric fully, the way other formerly British nations have. Yea there are still places in canada that have miles and feet or pounds on some old sign or texts, but on the whole i think metrication there has been a success and there's no reason the US, a nation of similar size, can't replicate that. Fortunately all of our scientific institutions already use metric, like the National Academy for Science, NASA, and even some branches of the military. Up in northern states close to the Canadian border, I've noticed that street signs all have both miles and kilometers displayed... seems like a pretty simple solution to me that could easily be done everywhere.
Well, it might be somewhat similar in area but the population is over 310 million people in the US while Canada is only a little over 10th the size in population. This easily explains why Canada is so fast to transition and the US so slow. Even the UK which has only 62 million has had trouble transitioning.
I've always been a fan of the metric system. Its core units are based (at least originally) on intuitive things: a meter was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole, the Celsius scale is built around 0 being the freezing point of water and 100 being the boiling point, a liter was defined as the amount of water it takes to fill a cubic decimeter of space, a kilogram was defined as the mass of that water at 4 degrees Celsius. All easy stuff that just about anyone can observe. The definitions have been refined since the system was first devised so that its units are more precise (for example, a second is now defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom". rofl) but it's always stood that derived units get based on multiples of ten. That's a real advantage of the system: consistency and ease of conversion. The Imperial system is just unnecessary to me. For one thing it's inconsistent in its derived units; a foot is 12 inches, a yard is 3 feet, and a mile is 1760 yards or 5280 feet; a pound is 16 ounces, and I don't even know how many teaspoons or tablespoons are in a cup. It's all just a buncha random numbers people have to remember for no real reason. But even more hilariously to me, is the origin of its definitions. The pound for example isn't actually based on anything intuitive by itself. Instead it's defined as 0.45359237... of a kilogram. But honestly, if it were up to me, I'd do away with both. We all know that the commonly used base 10 system is arbitrary in the grand scheme of things. What matters is ease of conversion between all units and systems. And one thing I know consistently struggles with base 10 is computers... go figure. A system based on powers of 2, like hexadecimal, is easy to convert between just like the metric system. And since computers do everything in twos, if everything were counted in base 2 or a power of 2, it would eliminate inherent numerical problems in computing like fractional imprecision. Big plus for making computer simulations more accurate and more scalable.
