Is it a stupid idea to have another word for twelve?

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Thanks, Pi, good stuff. Can you illuminate me on the Sumerians?

"Shut up, Brx."02:12, 4 June 2012

The Sumerians had a weird system that could have been base 10 if they had wanted. They got to 59 by writting 5 ten symbols and 9 one symbols, but instead of writing 6 ten symbol, they put 1 one symbol in the next position. 60 has the nontrivial factors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30, where as 10 only has 2 and 5. My guess that it is because 60 is divisble by 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, they liked it for dividing circles.

Pi 3:14 (talk)02:50, 4 June 2012

Dividing circles?

"Shut up, Brx."03:07, 4 June 2012

You can learn a lot from circles, for example you can use a sequence of circles to construct an approximation of the squareroot of 2.

Pi 3:14 (talk)03:19, 4 June 2012

one, "a", only; two, pair, twin, double; three, tripplet, trine; four ummm... ok, i can't think of any for 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 that are actually used.

Now, riddle me this: why did baker's dozen come about?

Green mowse.pngGodotWhen I graduated, Cognative Science of Religion didn't even exist! now it's everywhere04:07, 4 June 2012