Re: Numbers from 1-10

In a message dated 8/29/2003 3:13:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
endipatterson@YAHOO.COM writes:


> You will notice that ten can be divided by one two and five,(three factors)
> but twelve can be divided exactly by one, two, three, four and six (five
> factors) . . . Note
> that to write 1/3 or 2/3 as a decimal you get a recurring fraction.
>
>
On a slight tangent, this reminds me that the British author Anthony Burgess*
notes somewhere that although the new decimal currency (100 pence to the
pound) seems to be widely regarded as more "logical" than the old
pounds/shillings/pence system, the old system was actually more convenient for human beings --
the old pound of 240 pence could be divided three ways, or six ways, without
getting a repeatiing decimal.  The guinea could even be divided by seven or
nine.

*Unless it was someone else. I think he was the one.