DharmaCurious@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s not how radiation exposure works. The types of mutations in DNA it causes is generally things like cancer, not birth defects that transfer into future generations. In order for the number of fingers human-wide to change, there would need to be a specific mutation for that, and that mutation would have to be beneficial enough that the 11+ or 9- fingered folks would be more likely to breed than us 10 fingered folks.
On top of that, while base 10 is convenient because of our fingers, it’s unlikely to change due to how ingrained it is in our culture at this point. It’s also hardly the only system we’ve used. The Babylonians used a base 60. Many cultures have used base 12. Base 12 is actually very convenient for our fingers already.
Hold your left thumb against the first segment of your left pinky and count 1, move up one segment, count two. Count each of the segments on your left fingers. You’re now at 12. Move your right thumb to the first segment on your right pinky, and then start over on your left. Each time you count 12 on the left, move your right thumb up one. You can now count to 144 on your fingers.
TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 1 year ago
(Note, this is not directly related to the base 12 conversation, I just like to share this method of counting whenever I can.)
I like your method a lot, it’s easier than binary with the fingers (which can get you to 1023 with both hands). But it is more work to understand for a base 10 brain than my current method:
One, two, three, four on your fingers of your right hand as usual, then drop all fingers and add the thumb for five. Then six, seven, eight, nine with the fingers.
Then drop all fingers and thumb, and add a finger on the other hand. That’s ten. Continue. You can get to 99 and very rapidly comprehend the value without any real work. Thumbs are 5s, fingers are 1s, one hand is the 1s column and the other hand is the 10s column.
DharmaCurious@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I like your method! I’m curious how to do binary? I only know the method I talked about because I really, really like base 12 for a story I wrote and got very into it with the research. I’ve never considered other techniques for finger counting before.