Re: CHAT: Measurements (was: Re: CHAT: browsers)

kendra wrote:
> How do systems that don't have zeros or use places (tens and
> hundreds and stuff) write numbers?
Depends on the language, but generally there are special characters for
high numbers.  For example, the Chinese/Japanese system is:

Characters for 1-10
Characters for 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000,000, 1,000,000,000, etc.
To write, e.g., 42, write 4-10-2
To write, e.g., 235,675, write 2-10-3-10,000-5-1,000-6-100-7-10-5
And so forth

I assume you know the Roman system, so I won't bother explaining it.

The Kassi use a base 12 in their language; however, they borrowed their
characters from a base-6 language, creating a bit of complexity.

There are characters for 1-6 and 36 (I'll get to higher numbers in a
moment)
To write numbers up to 143, you write it with a C/J-type system using
base 6 (it's not necessary to write a 1 before a multiple).  For
example, 42 would be written: 36-6; 99 would be written 2-36-4-6-3 (and
*said* as 8 dozen 3)

Now, originally the base 6 system was completely consistent.  However, a
later reform changed the higher characters to values consistent with
base 12, so that what originally was 216 (6 cubed) was changed to 144,
and what was originally 1296 (6^4) was changed to 1728 (12^3).

So, to write 2003, you'd write:

1728-144-3-36-3-6-5 (and *say* dozen-gross gross 10 dozen 11)

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