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B1 Intermediate English 9:12 Educational

Base 12 - Numberphile

Numberphile · 2,257,631 views · Added 2 months ago

Learning Stats

B1

CEFR Level

5/10

Difficulty

Subtitles (174 segments)

00:00

JAMES GRIME: There are people out there who want to change

00:03

the way that you count.

00:05

They want to change the world so that we stop counting using

00:09

10 symbols and start counting using 12 symbols.

00:15

I love them.

00:16

I think these guys are great.

00:18

Let's talk about what we know so far.

00:19

So, the way we count is the decimal system.

00:22

It uses 10 symbols.

00:23

So, let's just write those out, first of all.

00:26

0, 1, 2, 8, 9.

00:30

Once we get to this point, we start to have to make our

00:33

numbers using combinations of the symbols we've already got.

00:36

12, 13, 14, 22, 23.

00:41

Now, if we had been born with six fingers on each hand, then

00:47

we would have 12 fingers, and maybe we would have started

00:51

using something called the dozenal system where it's

00:55

based on 12 symbols.

00:57

And there are some people out there who think this is the

00:59

system we should be using.

01:01

They think we should have six fingers on each hand.

01:05

They're disappointed we don't have six fingers on each hand,

01:09

because they think it's a much easier way to count.

01:12

So first of all, if we're going to use 12 symbols, I

01:15

need two extra.

01:16

Let's have a look at what they suggest.

01:18

For 10, we we're going to have a symbol like this.

01:22

That's called dek.

01:23

And for 11, we're going to have a symbol like this, which

01:27

is called el.

01:29

So now it reads 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, dek, el.

01:36

This would be 12.

01:38

In fact, they say do.

01:40

So this is do, do 1, do 2, do 3, do 4, do 5, do 6, do 7, do

01:47

8, do 9, do dek, and do el.

Full subtitles available in the video player

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