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Re: Why not 13 months? (Was La Systeme Metrique)
Paul F. Sagasta (pauls@mozart.inet.co.th)
28 Jul 1995 13:43:04 GMT
Organization: Internet Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand.
Distribution: world
randy (rburbach@inch.com) wrote:
| souters@mackie.edfac.usyd.edu.au (Stephen Souter) wrote:
| > The chief problem is that 13 happens to be a prime number. This makes it
| > mathematically impossible to subdivide a year in any satisfactory fashion.
| > You cannot even divide such a year into the customary four seasons and
| > hope to come out with the same number of whole months in each season.
| wel, the seasons start and end with the solstices and equinoxws, which
| makes this a moot point.
| > By contrast, a 12-month year can be easily divided into halves
| > (six-monthly periods), quarters (3-monthly), thirds (4-monthly), and
| > sixths (bimonthly) of more or less equal size.
| and what advantage is theere in this?
One can certainly see the advantage in an easily divisible year.
However, this pre-supposes that the year was designed to be 12 months. I
seem to remember, but won't spend a lot of time trying to confirm it,
that the year once was 10 months, and two months were added to honor
Julius Augustus something or other. Good they had the good sense then.
Perhaps that good sense should come now. Should we switch to a base-12
numbering system?? Some advantages:
1) clocks (time), compass readings, many tool sizes, the 12 inch ft.,
etc. could all be expressed decimally (in the new system),
2) twelve is more easily divisible than 10!!
3) U.S. and U.K could tell the rest of the world to switch to our
base-12/English measurement system.
Any other believers?
-- Paul F. Sagasta
pauls@mozart.inet.co.th
http://www.inet.co.th/cyberclub/pauls
Bangkok, Thailand
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