
Polynesians May Have Invented Binary Math - auctiontheory
http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2013/12/polynesians-may-have-invented-binary-math
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grannyg00se
"The decimal system is handy considering that people have 10 fingers."

How does having 10 fingers matter in a base ten system? If we're going by
finger count a base11 system seems more appropriate - we'd have a unique
symbol for each finger. And that way you can count all the values of the first
position with your fingers and you only move to double digit numbers when you
run out of fingers.

Anyway, as alluded to in the article, we should be using a base12 system:
[http://io9.com/5977095/why-we-should-switch-to-a-
base+12-cou...](http://io9.com/5977095/why-we-should-switch-to-a-
base+12-counting-system)

~~~
seryoiupfurds
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

finger overflow!

(ten plus) one, (ten plus) two, ...

For base ten, you can just put a pebble down for each overflow, and the
fingers will always count the units. If you were using base eleven, you would
count [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A],[10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19],[1A,20...], so a
given finger wouldn't always correspond to the same digit.

~~~
grannyg00se
But your writing system overflowed before your finger overflow. That's not
very intuitive. Each finger represents a unique glyph until suddenly on the
last finger it takes two glyphs to represent it.

If you were using base eleven you'd put your pebble down when you hit dec(11)
aka base11(10). That pebble represents dec(11). Then first finger would be
dec(12) aka base11(11) and once again your first finger represents 1.

So in base11 [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A] - pebble - [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,1A]

A pebble and five fingers would be dec(16) instead of dec(15) but your five
fingers still represent 5. The pebble represents 11 instead of 10.

But really, once you're into double digits you normally wouldn't be counting
on your fingers anymore. You write 10.

~~~
bediger4000
This is exactly the system that Robert Forslund advocates as an explanation of
certain ancient numbering systems in "A Logical Alternative to the Existing
Positional Numbering System"
([http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.44....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.44.59&rep=rep1&type=pdf)).

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auctiontheory
I do think it's interesting how so many cultures who were (allegedly) once on
the forefront of science and technology have "fallen behind the curve." And no
doubt history will continue to repeat itself.

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jotm
How is calculating in binary easier? I think it's easier to do relatively
complex calculations in base10/12 in our head than to write an immense amount
of numbers down then trying to work with them further. Wouldn't one page of
calculations turn into ten? Or maybe I'm too tired to think straight...

~~~
bediger4000
You only have to remember 3 facts for addition: 0+0 = 0, 1+0 = 1 and 1+1 = 10.
The last is the only carry situation, further simplifying memorization. THe
same thing holds for subtraction, multiplication and division, very few facts
to memorize.

I'm guessing that Polynesian civilizations didn't deal with millions and
millions of any particular item, so that they rarely did a one page
calculation. Indeed, the article claims that "80" is a large number for the
ancient Mangarevans.

But this article totally misses out on the real issue - who owns the
Intellectual Property of Binary Math? Previously, we thought it was Leibniz,
and clearly, we've been paying his heirs for the use of their Intellectual
Property, but now we have to trace down the descendants of these fantasically
Inventive Mangarevans, and give them the Lion's Share of the money previously
given to the (now know to be false) owners of Binary Math Intellectual
Property.

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dredwerker
I bet they invented polymath.

