Re: Vocab #5

On Saturday 27 April 2002 09:12, Christian Thalmann wrote:

> (thumb|fingers), (.) = curled down (as in a fist), (O) = stretched
>
> 0 = (.|....)
> 1 = (.|O...)
> 2 = (O|O...)
> 3 = (O|OO..)
> 4 = (.|OOOO)
> 5 = (O|OOOO)
> 6 = (O|O..O)
> 7 = (O|...O)
        Very neat! At one point I was working on a similar system, although I used
two hands; I found that by using the thumbs as "eights" indicators, I could
count up to 24. To borrow your notation:
1 = ....|. .|O...
8 = OOOO|. .|OOOO
11 = ....|. O|O...
18 = OOOO|. O.|OOOO
21 = ....|O O|O...
28 = OOOO|O O|OOOO

        Note that Enamyn has no zero, thus 28octal = 24decimal. Of course, I could
count up to 38octal (32decimal) by making thumb usage significant, but this
could be confusing. So if one thumb is used (regardless of whether it is left
or right), it indicates one eight. if two thumbs are used, two eights.

> Eight is a nice number, about the same order of magnitude as our ten,
> but it divides nicer: 2 x 2 x 2 rather than 2 x 5.  Most importantly:
> It's not ten!  Is there anything more boring than ten-based systems?
> ;-)
        I agree, eight is a very nice number. One of these days I'm going to have to
sit down and figure out the extent of the Enamyn's mathematical ability.
        :Peter