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Saturday, February 10th, 2007 04:15 am (UTC)
Your reasoning interests me. Certainly, if it were about implementing a new system of bases, senary would rate well, though I'd still be given to using a base that's a power of two. Teach someone hex from the time they first start counting, and - I imagine - it'd become happily intuitive all by itself. Plus, for as long as computers use binary, it removes a barrier to more people understanding more of how they function. Maybe it wouldn't be as easy as senary, but it'd likely be worth it eventually.

(But then, why not quaternary? Easy access to binary, hexadecimal, duotrigesimal, quadrosexagesimal, and eventually, octovigesacentimal, sexaquinquagesibicentimal, duodecapentacentesimal, quadrovigesamillesimal, and so on. And, of course, SI measurements would also need to change to the new base, otherwise it'd be just as bad as Imperial measures. (Also, writing out those base names was kind of fun.))

My vote is swayed by two things. The first is backwards compatibility. Decimal is backwards-compatible for at least three centuries of civilisation. The second is the easy availability of simple calculation tools for decimal - ie, fingers.

(That said, fingers are, in fact, senary-compatible. People could, with minimal effort, count to 35 556. So, I suppose it's just the backwards-compatibility.)

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