(OT) Why do movies always use Roman Numerals in the date

Base 36 is even more efficient. But that's not sufficient reason to use it for most things.

NT

I sort of thought that might be the case. Even though in my case the date dont matter, it's the content of the video that I look for.

But if it says 2012, I know the date instantly. If it's in Roman numerals, I have to think about it and probably look at a .JPG image I have that shows all the numerals.

Then again, I was raised on the SAE system in the US. Metrics are something I can never quite get used to. If I am shopping on ebay and a pocket radio says it's 90mm X 45mm, that means nothing to me. If it says it's 3.5 inches wide, I immediately picture a modern 2x4, which are all

3.5 inches wide. So if it's listed in metric, I have to always convert it to inches or feet using google or an offline conversion program that I have.

That too!!!!

Computers won't like it as much.

C'mon. Nothing is more important than efficiency, right? That's why everyone should be forced, at gun point, to the metric system for everything. Well, maybe Metric(16).

Why not use Babylonian base 60 (actually base 5x12 or was it base 12x5 IIRC).

Because it's clumsy. It's only a small step beyond tally marks.

Since we're discussing number systems, why not have half of the digits represent negative quantities? Let's have a base-12 system with digits running from -5 to +6, for example. That would be easy to learn, compact and efficient. OK, not for old gits brought up on a decimal system with only positive digits.

We have this preconception that our positional decimal system with digits from 0 to 9 is so much better that everything else, but it's really just a matter of what you're used to. It's possible to do better.

Jeroen Belleman

they're fine with it. Computers routinely use a higher base, using letters, numbers and various "$%^$*( whatsits.

?

NT

32, 64, sure. 36, not so much.

??

Sure. It works for time. Even socialists use it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And that's the bottom line. Metric bigots are just that. There is simply no reason to change and a lot of reasons not to.

Before the French revolution, there was a huge number of incompatible measuring systems. The absolute maximum of the world population has adopted a common measuring system due to the benefit of easier cooperation with other people.

The US is still living in the past.

I wasn't referring to units. Only to number systems. There really is a huge advantage to using a universal, regular and systematic unit system. The metric system isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than what you commonly use.

Jeroen Belleman

2^5, 2^6 but not 2^2x3^3? The dozen is popular because the Germans used base-12, but also because it can be divided exactly by 2,4 and 3.

Efficiency is a comparison of input to output, using the same units.

It's difficult to what the input and output might be with arithmetic, which makes krw's proposition somewhat comical. He might even have been trying to be funny (comical) which makes a change from funny (peculiar).

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Strictly speaking 2x2x3x5. Easily divisible.

Phonemic alphabets seems to run from about 20 to 30 symbols. Sixty might be a bit much.

It seems that they actually made the sixty symbols in groups of ten, so that there were only two basic symbols, a "one" unit which might be repeated up to nine times, and a ten unit which might be repeated up to five times.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

The French revolution tried to dump it.

Decimal time didn't catch on then, and another try a century later got even less support. The French revolutionaries weren't - technically - socialists, since the concept hadn't really been formalised back then.

Krw wouldn't care - "socialist" is merely a term of abuse for him.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

That is what I said. But currently certain backward countries use a decimal numbering system with hex fractions for units.

The reason Base-16 is more efficient is that the base is a power of 2 and the exponent of that base itself is a power of 2 as well.

16 = 2^4

That does not hold for 36 or even 32.

Efficient = common numbers can be expressed in a convenient number of digits, and those digits can be easily derived from internal values in a binary computing system. (this is not only advantageous for computers, but also for manual calculations)

No, I only describe the backward US system. Dividing units in fractions of 1/16 is not reasonable in a decimal system. It would be OK when the numeric system was hexadecimal.

I see you're wasting time now. Enjoy your day.

According to one definition of efficient.

NT