Re: OT: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, January 7, 2006, 3:56 |
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On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:07:23 -0500, Jefferson Wilson
<jeffwilson63@...> wrote:
> Paul Bennett wrote:
>> Of course, it shouldn't take much math to prove that the most optimal
>> system would have units of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc., provided of
>> course that the general populace could be made sufficiently familiar
>> with the concept.
>
> Depends on whether you want the lowest number of _coins_ or the lowest
> number of _types_. Binary is good for the former, but for the latter
> you get the series: 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, etc. (Something to keep in mind
> for those of us with duodecimal numbering systems I think.) Hmmm, take
> this series up to 96, round each value to the nearest number divisible
> by 5, and you have the American coinage system.
There's a 15c coin?
And, personally, I'd rather deal with a smaller number of coins per
transaction (in both directions), provided the types of coins could be
readily distinguished by fingertip touch while within my pocket or a cash
register drawer. I guess that's largely a matter of taste, though, isn't
it? It's the sort of thing that'd be hard to measure objectively, I
imagine.
I think spheres of radius "n" for a value of 2^n might be easily
discernable.
What about polyhedra? Naming them in the most convenient manner for me
(and in agreement with their number of faces, for the D&D impaired),
there's d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20 which are all easily distinguishable
by feel at reasonably small sizes, as well as maybe a large disk and a
small disk. You could cover all penny values up to over a dollar with that
arrangement. Given differently sized bills for penny powers of two higher
than that, and you'd be set up with IMO a pretty decent system. If I ever
develop a Sci-Fi conculture, I might have to go with that, but others
should feel free to steal it, if you wanna, since I don't really *do*
Sci-Fi, at least from an inventing point of view. I think I'd have to know
a *lot* more about language before I even start to go there.
Paul
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