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Re: Numbers from 1-10

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Thursday, August 28, 2003, 15:49
The Dankarans count in base 5 - they considered one hand the basic
unit, rather than both hands together.  I originally was going to
make it base 6, since a base-5 system doesn't need the digit 5,
and a fist makes a fine 0, and you could therefore count up to 35
on two hands . . .  but I decided that was quite an unrealistic
leap for early humans to make. :)

So instead they count in base 5, but the five digits are 1-5 instead
of 0-4: 1,2,3,4,5,11,12,13,14,15,21,22,23,24,25, etc.  The symbol
for "zero" is separate from the digits and can only mean "nothing";
it's not a placeholder since no placeholder is needed.

Oh, and we talked about that count-collector a couple months ago.
I got email from him and replied.  I figured, what's the harm?

-Mark