I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

Fred Davis first played the World Snooker Championships in 1937. He lost a qualifying round to a guy called Bill Withers, and his brother Joe - who had won every title to that point - considered this a family embarrassment and duly beat Withers 30-1 in the first round proper.

Fred was still playing professionally in 1993 at the age of 79, and lost 5-1 to a teenage Ronnie O'Sullivan in qualifying for the Grand Prix event.

seagull

Candie wrote: »

Friday night saw the 21st hour
of the 21st day
of the 21st week
of the 21st year
of the 21st century.

21st day of the week?

Candie wrote: »

We're leaving out the month. It's the 21st week. And if that's not good enough for you I just don't know what to say.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!

/flounce

Yeah, mea culpa. I just can't help myself.

At least I didn't erroneously suggest it's the 22nd year of the 21st century. To keep the the thread on track, there was no Year 0. Our year numbering system was "invented" in Europe in the 6th century. The number zero didn't "arrive" in Europe until a few hundred years later.

fergiesfolly

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Also works with Guinness and curries.
Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

And on the subject of zero. While as a number, zero is a useful concept it's as a digit it comes into its own. Without it we couldn't use our numbering system as you would not be able to differentiate between 12,102 and 120, say.

Our numbering system is amazingly efficient. 45 + 54 = 99. Relatively easy! Would have been a nightmare in a Roman primary school. XLV + LIV = XCIX

I can't even begin to put my head around how they did simple addiction.

jasonb

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Scuba divers kinda* do that too. If you get yourself neutrally buoyant while scuba diving, so that you're neither sinking or ascending, then breathing out can help you descend and breathing in can help you ascend. Basically you should be gently bobbing up and down as you breathe in and out.

*ok, so it's not the same really, but I still think it's interesting...

ohnonotgmail

LarryGraham wrote: »

And on the subject of zero. While as a number, zero is a useful concept it's as a digit it comes into its own. Without it we couldn't use our numbering system as you would not be able to differentiate between 12,102 and 120, say.

Our numbering system is amazingly efficient. 45 + 54 = 99. Relatively easy! Would have been a nightmare in a Roman primary school. XLV + LIV = XCIX I can't even begin to put my head around how they did simple addiction.

they didn't use roman numerals that way. If they wanted to do addition they did it on an abacus. they only used roman numerals for recording the result.

ohnonotgmail

Deleted User wrote: »

Why 4?!

How could you observe all 4 at once? Why not start with one?

Not the first problem with the experiment that occurred to me.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

they didn't use roman numerals that way. If they wanted to do addition they did it on an abacus. they only used roman numerals for recording the result.

From my understanding, it is believed that they converted the Roman numerals into the abacus did the sum and converted back to the numerals. The Indo-Arabic numbering systems does this without the converting.

Despite their impressive engineering feats the Romans didn't contribute much to mathematics.

silliussoddius

LarryGraham wrote: »

And on the subject of zero. While as a number, zero is a useful concept it's as a digit it comes into its own. Without it we couldn't use our numbering system as you would not be able to differentiate between 12,102 and 120, say.

Our numbering system is amazingly efficient. 45 + 54 = 99. Relatively easy! Would have been a nightmare in a Roman primary school. XLV + LIV = XCIX I can't even begin to put my head around how they did simple addiction.

Does anyone know why a species with ten fingers and thumbs ended using 12 times tables in maths class instead of something more base 10 orientated?

New Home

Because in some countries they don't use whole digits to count, but every phalanx of each finger and other parts of their hands, too.

Evade

I saw a video a while ago, I'm pretty sure it was on Numberphile, and part of it was about a tribe of people that counted using finger and thumb joints including knuckles on one hand > wrist > elbow > shoulder > neck then back down the other arm finishing on the finger joints. That comes to 35 but if I remember correctly their count came to 37 so I've left out something they counted on.

So, for example, if they caught 17 fish one day they'd say something like "I caught a left shoulder of fish."

Professor Moriarty

Evade wrote: »

I saw a video a while ago, I'm pretty sure it was on Numberphile, and part of it was about a tribe of people that counted using finger and thumb joints including knuckles on one hand > wrist > elbow > shoulder > neck then back down the other arm finishing on the finger joints. That comes to 35 but if I remember correctly their count came to 37 so I've left out something they counted on.

So, for example, if they caught 17 fish one day they'd say something like "I caught a left shoulder of fish."

Women could count to 37 and men to 38.

silliussoddius wrote: »

Does anyone know why a species with ten fingers and thumbs ended using 12 times tables in maths class instead of something more base 10 orientated?

More flexible I think?

6 is a perfect number. 12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. 10 is harder to work with in terms of dividing things out.

(That's in addition to the counting your knuckles rather than fingers bit)

ohnonotgmail

LarryGraham wrote: »

From my understanding, it is believed that they converted the Roman numerals into the abacus did the sum and converted back to the numerals. The Indo-Arabic numbering systems does this without the converting.

Is that not what I said?

Oink

cdeb wrote: »

More flexible I think?

6 is a perfect number. 12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. 10 is harder to work with in terms of dividing things out.

(That's in addition to the counting your knuckles rather than fingers bit)

I normally blame the Brits as a reflex, but it works out wonderfully in this scenario.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Is that not what I said?

Apologies if that's a misinterpretation from me.

Anyway my point is about the efficiency of the Indo-Arabic numbering system when it comes mathematical operations. This system only works because someone came up with the simple idea to use zero as a positional digit. The clunkiness of using Roman numerals is just something I'm using an an example to explain good the Indo-Arabic system is (and we're only talking addition here, forget about long division using Roman numerals without the abacus).

silliussoddius wrote: »

Does anyone know why a species with ten fingers and thumbs ended using 12 times tables in maths class instead of something more base 10 orientated?

Imperial measures use lots of prime numbers. 12 is one of the saner measures.

there are NOT 12
pints in a gallon
ounces in a pound
pound in a stone
stone in a hundredweight
feet in a yard or fathom or furlong

BTW 1 rod is 16.5 feet.

Base 60 has the advantage that it can be easily be divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Imperial measures use lots of prime numbers.

Does it? I don't think it does. None of the examples you gave are prime for example except for feet in a yard, and 3 is a fairly small number and not that hard to work with.

cdeb wrote: »

Does it? I don't think it does. None of the examples you gave are prime for example except for feet in a yard, and 3 is a fairly small number and not that hard to work with.

11 is in the 22 yards in a chain

Well in that case 5 is in the 100cm in a metre?

When the Romans left Britain there were 5,000 feet in a mile. 1,000 five foot long paces.

A mine is now 5280 feet = 2x2x2x2x2 x 3 x 5 x 11 because of how good oxen are at ploughing.

cdeb wrote: »

Well in that case 5 is in the 100cm in a metre?

How many digits do most people have at the end of each limb ?

silliussoddius

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How many digits do most people have at the end of each limb ?

Holds up two fingers to give Roman response.