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by gregw2
21 days ago
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The earlier Spanish measurement system that changed to meters in Gaudi's lifetime was, like the English system, more 12-centric than 10-centric. In a way, base-10-centric measurements are the victors of a three thousand year battle between group-by-10s beancounter arithmatical people in Egypt/Mesopotamia and the also ancient 12-centric make-things-easily-divisible architect/construction geometers. True, 12 doesn't match the number of fingers or toes... but have you ever considered it does match the number of spaces around our fingers and toes? |
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We used to learn to count on our fingers instead of counting our fingers, our four fingers have twelve knuckles and our thumb is the pointer. There are quite a few schemes for counting and doing math on our fingers like this, some include the tips of our fingers as well or tips and two knuckles, or the segment between the joints or all of the above, and both hands for complex math and different fingers for different things like place so you could count higher and do math on larger numbers. Someone saying you counted on your fingers was once a compliment, only the unlearned would count in their head, too easy to lose place because of distractions.